Visual Notes Template For Meetings, Workshops and Discussions

Simple Meeting Notes Template

It can be helpful to take notes during a meeting, but only if you can make sense of your notes later on! This free download and printable template can help you structure both your notes AND your meeting time more productively.

Designed for re-occuring one-on-one phone/video meetings but can be used for pretty much any meeting type or size. For maximum impact, have all participants use the template and pause periodically to give folks time to write things down.

Can also be used as a pre-meeting prep sheet or post-meeting reflection sheet.

Head over to the One Squiggly Line Shop for your FREE download.

A Creative Halloween

Here’s a little create Halloween fun. Print out this DoodleBlocks sheet or put it into a drawing app on your ipad. Then fill in the blank boxes following along with the Halloween theme. Be sure to spend no more than 2 minutes per block. Also, be sure to continue any lines that touch the boundaries of the block — remember creativity is all about making connections. And be sure to color!

More DoodleBlock fun and a 30 day challenge available in the One Squiggly Line Classroom.

Pumpkin Season is Here!

Print out this mini pumpkin patch and practice drawing some faces on them. This can be a quick and simple warm up before creative work or a way to refresh your thinking when you get stuck. You can also trace over the pumpkins if you want to learn how to draw them. Head on over to the One Squiggly Line Shop to get this free printable download. A PNG file with transparent background so you can cut and paste individual pumpkins to use online, too. For all ages.

Communicate!

One handwritten word in a sea of text can make your message more warm, friendly and appealing. While it’s great to create your own visuals, there are times when that may not be possible. Head on over to the One Squiggly Line Shop to download this free PNG image with a clear background. It’s suitable to print up to 9.5” wide which works with regular printer paper in landscape mode.

Visuals Make Facts Friendly

Friendly hand-drawn visuals make facts more friendly and approachable. They can also make the fact more memorable. This is one of many visuals about fun facts of San Francisco.

Visual Thinking: Simple is Powerful

Friendly hand-drawn visuals can breathe new life into an old message. The topic of New Year's resolutions has been covered time and time again. So much so that people stop really paying attention to it. In effect, it becomes invisible. 

When that happens, a new approach is needed. Something to break the pattern and grab people's eye. No need to make it fancy or complex. Simple can be very powerful. Plus, when you keep things simple, they're less scary so you're more likely to follow through.

Creativity & Visual Thinking: They can be taught!

So why not combine the two to accomplish more in less time? That's what DoodleBlocks is all about — creating new ways of thinking based on key pieces of creativity, presented and practiced in a visual way.

When done consistently, these new ways of thinking will become a habit that will allow you to be a more visual and creative thinker, which will make you a better problem solver in your everyday life. Knowing and understanding various parts of creativity will also give you some new tools to use deliberately when creative inspiration is no where to be found.

In the mean time, here's a Thanksgiving themed DoodleBlocks sheet to get you started right now! New to DoodleBlocks or need a refresher? Check out the instructions first.

Free Thanksgiving Download

Creativity: Think inside the box, too!

There's a myth out there that highly creative people just sit around and wait for inspiration to strike. Like a great big lightening bolt from the sky. Or a soft whisper from a mystical muse.

Truth is, creativity is not quite so passive. It is an active process. And there's a science to it, not just an art. There are even formulas, methods, and procedures for generating ideas and, equally importantly, evaluating them.

While there's often a push to "think outside the box" when generating ideas, thinking inside the box can be just as important. And productive. "The box" gives you a starting place, and sometimes getting started can be the hardest part.

So when looking for creative ideas, it's really ok to start with what you know, right where you are, with whatever you have right in front of you. Because once you start, you'll most likely keep going until that great idea hits you.

Visual Illustration: Live Graphic Recording

When working live, you never know what's going to happen. I usually only have the same information the people in the audience have, which is a basic agenda. So I know the speaker's name, title of their talk, and how long they are scheduled to speak. That's it!

It's not uncommon for talks to go longer as planned, like the one above. That's usually a good sign, as it means the audience is really engaged. But it can be a challenge to capture all that extra content on the same page.

Color is a great way to keep things organized when there's not much space available. Grouping concepts and thoughts according to color allows you to have completely different ideas right next to each other without things getting confusing.

See more visual notes created live at One Squiggly Line's graphic recording page.

Visual Thinking: Using both pictures & words

To many, the term visual thinking means pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Maybe some charts and diagrams, too. And possibly a few mind maps thrown in for fun.

While pictures are a big part of visual thinking, words are also a big part. Words can be really powerful. Pictures can be very powerful. And when you put the two together, the message becomes even more powerful.

Check out the drawing above to see more specifically what's involved with both words and pictures.

Check out One Squiggly Line's About Visual Thinking page to learn more.