My boss in Chicago said my meeting notes were just a list, not a summary.

He told me, 'I need the why, not just the what,' after a quarterly review. I started adding a single line at the top explaining the main decision from each call. Has anyone else gotten blunt feedback that actually improved a small daily task?

3 comments

3 Comments

hugo8251mo ago

That shift from a list to giving the "why" is the whole game. My old manager called my first project plans "just a calendar" and it stung, but he was right. Now I force myself to write two sentences at the start of any doc: what we decided and the one reason it matters. It turns data into a story people can actually use.

henry_martinez1mo ago

Two sentences can save a whole meeting.

markhall17d ago

Does that mean I can finally stop calling my project plans "a list of stuff I should probably do"? I've been using that format for years and nobody's told me it's wrong yet.