AIBU to be terrified of taking minutes

[linda30]

I wonder if anyone else has ever struggled with this. In my organisation I am often dropped in mid-project and expected to perform support functions such as take minutes.

I feel like I am being unreasonable for fearing and resisting this task especially as my closest work colleague seems to have no problem taking minutes, and she often faces similar circumstances.

I just find that everything is happening too quickly and too chaotically for me. I don't understand how items tie together, or forget the names of people in the room. Also I can't seem to type and listen simultaniously.

I'd like to think I am not stupid, I have been complimented on my analytical ability a lot before and get good performance reviews for my systems and processes related work but meeting minutes are just beyond me and if I am honest I often just lose track of what's going on in meetings in general (even if not note taking) unless I am to speak on my area of expertise.

I feel that if some project materials were circulated beforehand or I had a chance to talk to people one on one to explain the proceedings I'd do a half decent job, but just being put there out of context and expected to take peoceedings is really scary and I feel I really suck at this. Frankly half the time I don't even understand what I am typing when taking such minutes.

I guess I am looking for tips to overcome this...

I do minute taking, mostly for disciplinary hearings. I've been doing it for a lot of years and still worry when I have typed them up, in case they come back because nobody could understand them! The person chairing the meetings I do, always has huge piles of notes that she reads from, she basically types up all the allegations and all her questions so I always ask her to borrow those whilst I type up the notes and it helps hugely. Then. I just need to make sure I get what the person says in response. I always handwrite first and have a form of shorthand I use, which is missing out all the vowels. It's easy to read back to type from and so much quicker. I always type the notes straight up as well while it's still fresh in my mind

In my last job I used to use a voice recorder. Also depending on whose meetings I was doing the minutes for, I had to amend my styles. I had a copy of signing in sheet as well while I did the minutes.

One person wanted them very brief while another wanted them more in depth. I still have nightmares about the amount of work it took to do the in depth ones, even with a recorder, I found it such a waste of time because no one read them as they were too long. They were more like reports than meeting minutes.

Stick to doing brief minutes unless told otherwise.

Don't type them, write them (you can make up your own shorthand), and allows you to add bits, arrows, loops etc, which make all the words make more sense.

Ask for clarification in the meeting.

As PP have said, a well managed meeting should follow an agenda, which gives the structure.

Focus on agenda item, briefly summarise any major objections or arguments, then key is to set down the decisions, actions, who is doing them, what they are, and the deadline. Any part that's not clear in the meeting check with Chair during the meeting.

Personally I used to structure the minutes write-up:
Date, time, location objective, group
Attending, apologies
Agenda points, with actions in bold.
Table at end setting out person / action / deadline.

(These days we don't minute meetings and much is done on-line, so after a videoconference we'd just send out an email of the actions table at the end, and 1 para summarising any decision.)

Write them up quickly after, highlight anything you're not sure of, and either send to chair or circulate asking anyone to suggest changes if their recall doesn't agree (whichever appropriate in your org).

You can ask to do a course on this as part of professional development. I did one in my first ever graduate job and it was really useful.