Taking Concise Notes | Allen Saakyan

Tim, what are you passionate about? What are you passionate about?

All right.

And this last point, this last point's really important. So can somebody just give me an example? What did their partner say they were passionate about? List something.

Golf.

Data, communities, okay, so education. So these, so this thought, what are you passionate about? Data. What do you say next?

What types of data?

Yes, why data? Tell me more about your passion about data versus what's your other potential response? Oh, that's cool.

I said.

That flatlines conversation, right? So, I said that. So it's a difference between being reactionary and just saying, OK, cool, versus being inquisitory and going deeper. Why data? Why education? Why communities? Tell me more about your passion.

OK?

So let their answers segue you into your next questions to ask them.

All right. Thanks.

All right, I'm excited for this one. I will ask you a poll. Let's do that now. Let's ask a poll. Which note-taking service do you use? Do you use no note-taking service? Do you use Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, do you use Google Keep?

I use all 3.

You use all 3? Really? You stay organized that way? Is it like business is on one, leisure is on the other?

Different purposes, yeah.

I haven't even thought of that. I love it.

I love it.

You just taught me something.

Good.

I'm leaving here learning something new. Now it's up to me to go and actually— try to put my creativity in one, my business in another, play around with that a little bit. I'm sorry I don't have the option for all 3. I did not think— I wasn't that enlightened before I came here that that was a possibility. Have you guys answered?

Yeah. Okay.

Sometimes on mobile it's gonna— it's shaky, sometimes it's working. Okay. Alright, we're working on it, we're working on it.

Mobile app. Instead of using the browsers, they made an app for it.

Correct. Make an app for it. Yeah.

Yep.

So all right, good. So it's looking like a bunch of you answered. If it pops up for you later, OK? If not, it's all right. I do want to see that data. We'll see it in a little bit. So this is how I organize my notes, by name, company, and passion. So you'll see a little video where I'll show you this. This is a really important point. How many of you guys care about neuroscience? Raise your hand. Okay, that's pretty good. So you guys know that the neurons that fire together wire together. I'm sure we've heard that a bunch. Now, when you're parsing somebody's conversation, when you're listening to somebody talk, and they're telling you about, why are you passionate about data? And then they start talking, and then they say, because data has the potential to change everyone's life, and then they keep talking, and then they say, I wanna build this thing in data. So what do you do? You're parsing their speech for the most key and relevant information for you to then write down in your note. So then you know that that person thinks that data has such a profound impact, data has the ability to change everyone's lives if they can build the service that helps them do that. So again, you're trying to list these key points. When your friend says, I'm from Venezuela, or I'm from Thailand, or wherever your friend says they're from, what do you do? You write down, they're from Venezuela. Oh, they have an older brother that lives in the United Kingdom. I'm going to also write that down. Next time I come and hang out with them, I'm gonna say, how's your older brother doing? Because it's easier for me to remember that way. This is just an additional resource for us to be able to more easily relationship build and keep notes on one another. So, I'm gonna show you the— this is also a really important point, bold and underline action items and execute right away. Once you're— when you're going through the note, Mr. 3 Notes, yes. What's your name?

Ead.

Ead? Like E? Ead, do you, when you use your notes, do you have ones where you need to take action items to get things done? Yeah? How do you typically remind yourself? Do you like bold or underline, or how do you have action items for yourself?

Well, I've been transitioning to Todoist, which is like an action-based app. Or when I was using Google Keep, I would just have a specific list of action items and that would be working.

Yep, yep. And so we can use these other services like the to-do. We can actually strike through our completed objectives once they're done. We can highlight them once they're done. We can highlight them to show that they're important. To get done, okay, and execute them right away. What's the worst thing that happens? You do a big full day, and then the second day big full day, and then by the third day you're like crap. I haven't followed up with the people I should have from the first day. So get it done right away. Spend the extra twenty minutes. It's fresher in your mind to get that done right away.

So I want to do do do do do.

All right, let me show you guys this one first. So, so this is kind of what my note looks like. So I want to show you a few things real quick. As you can see, this is the way that I was structuring my talk. I wrote down all these points that I really wanted to show you guys, these tips, and then I further went and structured them into points later. This is one of the organizations that I work with. They're called World's Fair Nano. Here I have the founders' names at the top. I have our upcoming partnership with StarTalk in New York that I have written down. One of my friends, Michael, his girlfriend just got a promotion at work. She's a research manager at Wondershare. So I have all these things listed about them so I can remember them more easily, right? Sometimes you're not— it's not listed on their profiles that they have kids or that who they're in a relationship with, that kind of stuff. Here's a note from one of my friends that is part of the Machine Learning Society. So here's just some notes on him and on blockchain and Ethereum. 3 months ago he started the society in New York, now has 500 members. So this is just, this is an example of how you guys can take notes about businesses that you're working with, friends, family, colleagues, etc. Yep, so here's some books that I was reading, someone that I was learning with at Berkeley. So cool, so that's an example for you guys. Let's check the poll now. Oh, we have a question, okay. Let's check the poll first, then we'll check the question.

So I have a question.

All right, not by much, but Evernote took the first spot, and then other people use some note-taking software, some use none. For the people that don't use any note-taking software, will you start taking notes now?

I'm using Word.

Using what?

Word.

Oh, you're using Microsoft Word to take notes. Okay, again, I didn't list all the options. Actually, there should have been a 5th option, which was One of the other note-taking platforms, but I don't know what that is. So for ones that don't take notes, will we start taking notes now? Are we on speaking terms, yes?

Yes.

Okay, so for ones that said that they don't take notes, are you guys gonna take notes, yes or no? Probably, yes, okay. All right, no, some people say no, that's perfectly fine, you don't need to take notes. But hopefully you'll understand the importance of that, though. Hold on, I'm just gonna tuck this cord in.

All right.

All right, so— All right, let's check this question. Any samples for the Evernote to take the notes by name, company, and passions? Oh, we just showed that, right? Yeah?

Yeah.

Yeah, okay. Was that question good? Okay, whoever asked that, I'm gonna check it off now.