Picture this. You spend three days in New York, back to back meetings, loud restaurants, coffee shop chats that blur together by lunch. Then you fly home, sit down to write it all up, and half of it’s already gone. The name you didn’t quite catch. That one throwaway line that turned out to be the whole point of the meeting.
I read a post from an AI professional who lived exactly this problem, and what the author did about it stuck with me. So I want to break it down for you, because it’s one of those small workflow shifts that quietly changes how you work.
The setup: too many conversations, not enough memory
The original poster described three days in New York packed with more conversations than one head could hold. Meetings stacked on meetings. Coffee shops, a couple of loud restaurants, a coworking space, and a lot of talks that were too important to forget.
Here’s the frustration the creator named so well. You already know how it usually goes. You fly home, you try to reconstruct everything from memory, and the details slip. Not the big stuff. The small stuff. The offhand comment that reframes an entire deal. The person’s name you meant to remember.
Three days of meetings used to mean three days of things you’d quietly lose.
That line hit me. Because it’s true for anyone who takes meetings for a living. The cost isn’t dramatic. It’s a slow leak.
The shift: one tool, running quietly
So on this trip, the author tried something different. Instead of a notebook that gets scribbled in and never read again, this savvy professional left Granola running on their phone. That’s it. Phone next to the flat white, quietly recording.
For anyone who hasn’t come across it, Granola is an AI note-taking tool built for real conversations. It listens, then turns the raw audio into clean, structured notes. No frantic typing during the meeting. No half-glancing down to catch up while someone’s mid-sentence.
What the creator loved most wasn’t the recording. It was being fully present. Actually in the conversation. Not scribbling. Not playing catch-up. Properly there.
The payoff: notes that were already done
Here’s the part that got me. The original poster would walk out of a meeting, open their phone, and the notes were already finished. Clean. Sorted by who they spoke to. Fully searchable.
That 8am espresso chat, half-forgotten by lunch? There. Word for word. Three days of conversations that normally would have leaked away, and this time the author didn’t lose a thing.
That’s the whole arc. A familiar problem, a tiny change in habit, and a completely different outcome. No new productivity system to learn. No 40-tab workflow. Just a tool doing the boring part so the human can do the human part.
Why this matters more than it looks
I think the real insight here isn’t “use an AI notetaker.” It’s about where your attention goes. When you’re taking notes by hand, part of your brain is always transcribing instead of listening. You’re a stenographer, not a participant. The person across the table can feel it too.
By handing the recording and structuring to a tool, the expert freed up the one thing that actually closes deals and builds relationships: presence. That’s the trade worth paying attention to.
How you can steal this workflow
You don’t need three days in New York to try what the creator did. Here’s how to put the same idea to work:
- Pick your capture tool. Granola is the one the author used, but the principle works with any AI notetaker you trust. The point is letting software handle the transcript.
- Set it and forget it. Start the recording before the conversation begins, then put the phone down and stop thinking about it.
- Be fully present. No side-glancing at notes. Make eye contact, ask better follow-up questions, and let the tool worry about the record.
- Review right after. Walk out and skim the clean notes while the meeting is still fresh, so you can add a quick tag or reminder.
- Organize by person. Sorting notes by who you spoke to, like the original poster did, makes follow-ups painless weeks later.
A few honest reminders
One thing worth flagging, because it matters. Recording conversations comes with responsibility. Laws and social norms around consent vary by place, so a quick “mind if I record this so I don’t miss anything?” is both polite and smart. Most people say yes, and it signals you care enough to get the details right.
And this fits a bigger trend I keep noticing. AI tools are quietly moving from “do the flashy thing” to “remove the boring friction.” Meeting notes, email drafts, transcript search. None of it is glamorous. All of it gives you back time and attention. That’s where the real value is hiding right now.
What struck me most about this contributor’s story is how low-effort the whole change was. No overhaul. One habit swap, and three days of would-be-lost conversations turned into a searchable, sorted archive.
If you take a lot of meetings and you’re tired of losing the good bits, this is worth a look. Check out the full LinkedIn post for the author’s own play-by-play, and maybe give your next coffee chat your full attention instead of your notebook.