How to take notes at a conference
Photograph the few slides you want to keep, add a line of your own for each talk, and write down who you met. Do it the same day, while the talk is fresh.
On this page9 sections
In short
- Write one sentence before the first talk: what do you want to bring home?
- Per talk, write fragments: one idea, one action, one doubt.
- Photograph a handful of slides, not all of them, and add a line of your own.
- Write who you met and what you agreed to do.
- Review for ten minutes the same evening, and file everything by event, talk and date.
That is the whole method. The rest of this guide explains each step, so the notes you take are the notes you will use later. It works with paper, a phone or a laptop, and it needs no app.
Decide what you will use the notes for
Before the first talk, write one sentence: what do I want to bring home? It might be a decision for your team, a list of tools to try, a few people to follow up with, or a report for your manager. The answer sets what is worth writing down.
This matters because many people stop taking notes when the notes feel useless. One attendee on the Posit community forum put it like this:
I stopped taking detailed notes at conferences because I found that I didn’t tend to look at them.
Notes you never open are a cost, not a record.
Write fragments, not sentences
You cannot transcribe a talk and listen to it at the same time. Write short fragments that will bring the idea back later. One conference attendee writing for Atomic Object describes the same habit:
I usually don’t write full sentences, just fragments that spark memory and insight later.
A useful shape for each talk:
- Talk and speaker. The title and the name, so you can find it again.
- One idea. The one thing you would repeat to a colleague.
- One action. What you will do, try or check because of it.
- One doubt. Anything you want to verify before you rely on it.
Photograph the few slides that matter
A photo is faster than typing a table, a diagram or a code sample. As one reply on the Posit community forum put it, “It’s useful to take pictures of the handful of slides you want to remember.”
The word that matters is handful. Fifty photos from one day are as hard to use as no photos.
Photograph the slide that states the main idea
Not every slide.
Write your one-line note straight away
Do it right after the photo, so the photo has context.
For the longer version, see how to photograph and organize presentation slides.
Note who you met and why
A name without a reason is hard to use later. Write the person’s name, the talk or place where you met, and what you agreed to do. Another reply on the Posit community forum adds: “I also took notes of who I met and how I could find them.”
Example: “Maria, after the pricing talk. Works on onboarding at a small SaaS. Send her the checklist link.” Twelve words, and you can still act on it a month later.
Review the same day
Take ten minutes in the evening. Read the day’s fragments, cross out what no longer matters, and turn each remaining action into a task with a date. Another reply on the Posit community forum gives the same tip: “try to revisit those ideas the same day.”
The review is also when you fix the filing. Make sure every note and photo says which event, which talk and which day it belongs to. Two minutes now saves an hour of searching later. If you need to write something for your team, the conference report template starts from exactly these notes.
File everything by event and talk
This is the step most people skip, and it is why notes disappear. A good filing rule has three parts:
One place
Not a notebook for one event, a photo album for another and an email draft for a third.
One name for each event
Use the same pattern every time, for example “Web Summit Lisbon 2026”.
Talk and date on every note
A note is easy to find when you remember who spoke or what day it was.
Next year you will not remember which event a thing came from, only the thing. The goal is to make it findable by either. The guide on how to remember what you learned at a conference covers that long game.
Where Eventnote fits
You can run this method on paper and a camera roll. Eventnote is one way to do the filing for you. You photograph a slide or import photos you already took, and Eventnote sorts them into events and talks by date and reads the text on each slide.
You add notes, voice notes and the people you met next to the talk. Later you can ask a question and see the event, the talk, the date and the slide the answer came from.
Eventnote is free to start with 100 slides and a sample event, and text is kept on every plan. See plans and the FAQ. Eventnote is coming to iOS and Android.
Checklist for the next conference
- Write one sentence on what you want to bring home.
- Per talk: one idea, one action, one doubt.
- Photograph a handful of slides, not all of them.
- Write who you met and what you agreed to do.
- Review for ten minutes the same evening.
- Put event, talk and date on everything, in one place.
Questions
Should I take notes on a laptop, phone or paper?
Use what lets you keep listening. Some attendees prefer pen and paper because a laptop adds distractions. A phone is the easiest tool for photographing a slide. Many people use paper or a phone for the talk and move everything into one place afterwards.
What do I write down and what do I skip?
Write down what is new to you, what you disagree with, and what you will do about it. Skip what you already know and anything the slides or the recording will give you. One line per idea is enough.
How do I find a note a year later?
File every note under the event, the talk and the date on the day you take it, and keep all events in one place. A note with no event or date is hard to find, however good the note is.
Is it okay to photograph a slide?
Usually yes for a handful of slides, but check the event rules and ask if a speaker says no photos. Read more in the guide on how to photograph and organize presentation slides.
Your conference memory
Slides, notes and voice notes from every event, ready to ask about.
Free to start: 100 slides and a sample event. No card needed.