This is the one unconventional note-taking workflow I rely on to organize my scattered brain

Over time, I’ve dabbled in building Notion databases and used a range of apps.

But, as it turns out, the problem was never storing these thoughts. It was about converting them into something legible, understandable, and, more importantly, actionable.

Often enough, I’d skip the note entirely because the effort wasn’t worth it.

However, recently I’ve started using NotebookLM, not necessarily as a text-based note organizer, but as a place to dump all these thoughts as voice recordings and meeting audio.

It’s helped me change how I capture and actually retrieve information for the better.

Traditional note-taking kept failing for me

Finding information later on is not easy

The problem with text notes is that writing a note or typing a note requires me to slow down, think, and write.

Now, on one hand, that’s a cognitive task on top of whatever I’m already thinking about. But often, I have fleeting thoughts about features, ideas, articles, or projects to work on while I’m driving or taking a walk.

By the time I open an app and start a new note, I’ve already lost the thread or have become busy with something else.

Voice memos are understandably much faster. I tap Record, say whatever I need to say, and move along. But as good as voice memos are, the problem has always been the backend.

I have a voice recorder app full of files with cryptic names and a folder full of voice recordings, but I have no idea what any of them contain, nor do I have the time to actually sit down, listen to each one of them from the beginning, and catalog them.

That’s just adding another task to my already busy task list.

Elsewhere, meeting recordings get even worse. Sitting through an hour-long call a second time just to pull out action items is a real waste of time.

I’ve tried transcription tools, and the output can be decent, but then that’s another subscription to pay, and I’m not a big fan of that. As you can probably make out, I’m quite picky.

However, using NotebookLM for both these tasks fixes the backend problem. You just drop an audio file directly into a notebook as a source; the tool transcribes it, pulls out the key topics, and generates a summary.

What used to be a cryptically named voice file labeled by a timestamp is now something I can actually query and take action on.

So if it’s a meeting recording, I can ask what the deadline is or the embargo, and it pulls the answer from the recording. I don’t have to listen to anything twice.

The same goes for voice notes and memos. I can ask it to compile a list of all the action items that I spoke out.

It’s been a big productivity booster because, surprise, surprise, speaking tends to be much faster than writing.

The biggest advantage here is the transcription quality. NotebookLM uses AI to transcribe audio, and it handles everything from overlapping speech to poor audio quality much better than you’d expect.

Some words might still require correction, and that’s usually the case with names, but other than that, it’s yet to fail me.

Capturing ideas without breaking your flow

Voice notes help you stay organized on the go

Here’s how it works in my actual workflow. When an idea comes to me while I’m walking, in the shower, between calls, or doing anything else, I record a voice memo on my phone and immediately export the relevant ones to a notebook and organize them by project.

It just takes a few minutes for it to transcribe the file and give me a summary of every idea I’ve captured, organized into topics, without typing a single word.

Similarly, for meetings, I record the call and drop the audio file into a dedicated notebook for that project or client. NotebookLM transcribes it and lets me interact with it through a chat interface.

I no longer need to write meeting notes in real time, which would otherwise mean that I am just half-focused on the actual conversation.

I can be fully present, knowing the recording is there, and can act on that recording without having to think about it while on the call.

Since NotebookLM keeps everything grounded to the source you upload, you can be sure that no hallucinations or external information are being added or shared out.

As someone who works with privileged information as part of his work, this is important to me. I cannot let client data leak out to the internet.

The other part of using NotebookLM to work with your voice recordings is that it can pull from multiple sources of information.

So if you’re working on a project, you might have a voice file with your own personal thoughts on the matter and another voice recording of an actual meeting.

When you dump it into a single project, NotebookLM uses both these audio files as information sources.

So when you ask questions that draw on your personal thoughts on the matter and information that was sourced from a meeting, NotebookLM can pull from both sources and give you a coherent response.

That sort of cross-referenced use is extremely hard to do with most other tools, and especially not with a pure transcription service.

I’m yet to come across another tool that can act on this data in a similar fashion.

The biggest shift in note-taking is a voice-based workflow

The biggest advantage of using voice-based memos in NotebookLM has been that I capture more data now.

Working with text files has a lot of friction to it. You either need to be actively working on your phone, sitting at a computer, or pulling out a notebook.

All of that is great, but it adds up and slows you down, and while there is a place for it, it is not always feasible for me.

Voice notes basically have zero friction. You just have to press a button and start recording.

It has made me realize that the bottleneck I faced wasn’t ideas or remembering thoughts, but putting them together in the quickest way possible, and that’s where NotebookLM absolutely excels.

It handles transcription, organization, and summarization, and gives me a chat-based interface to ask questions from my own thoughts instead of hunting through files.

It’s not going to replace every note-taking need. For some use cases, you still need to drop down into structured writing and text-based input.

However, I feel there is a place for both, and for everyday thoughts and everyday note-taking, Notebook LM has become my preferred choice over the other apps and tools I’ve used.