I can’t tell if they are mocking me, poking good-natured fun, or are serious.

Back in April, I recorded a video that outlined my note-taking strategy. Over the years, lots of people have commented on it in meetings and have been curious about how it works. I’ve got the video embedded down at the end of this article.

The basic idea is to draw a box in the upper right of your notes pages, in which you put key ideas. The important thing is to think ahead of time about your purpose for taking the notes so you know — during the meeting — what to record.

But now, three months later, Last night I noticed this odd flurry of comments on the video. They are a strange mix of praise, jest, and sarcasm:

Thank you very much! This system has really expanded my post-meeting analysis. I’ve also expanded on your technique by adding an extra box in the lower left hand corner to record random thoughts unrelated to the subject of my meetings (such as what others are wearing or the types of pens they use, etc). Though somewhat recently I’ve been considering using a rhombus because my style of note analysis may be described as oblong or semi-circular. What are your thoughts on other shapes?

And:

I think we would get along well because I use graph paper too! Do you ever doodle when you take notes? I confine myself to the lines of the paper, so my doodling comes out looking like something made on an etch a sketch.

And:

thanks! now i can tell if somebody is a virgin or not just by looking at his notes!!!

Yes, I get that they are making fun of me. It’s just the all-over-the-map tone is sort of interesting to me. I kind of like it. Lately I have been getting a bunch of quite nasty comments on Rockville Central, the local blog I run, and these comments are pretty fun and refreshing.

The thing is, if I squint a bit, I can see how that “rhombus” comment might be meant in earnest.. And if that is true, then what about the others?

Anyway, I am just glad some folks found the video again! (It’s one of my more-viewed videos; people seem to come back to it every few weeks.)