This week I spent a session with a consulting firm. Their clients care a great deal about confidentiality, so the firm doesn't record or transcribe client meetings. Someone types notes live in Notion instead, in one long running page for each client.

Then the typing starts again. After the meeting, a person re-enters the takeaways into Asana as tasks. Then a person writes them out a third time in a follow-up email. Same information, three rounds of typing. I'm tired just thinking about all the typing.

A lot of investment firms assume that no recorder means no automation. I'd like to offer another way to see it.

My suggestion was a small change to how the notes are stored: one page per meeting, titled with the date and client.

Here's why that helps. A scheduled task needs something it can find and read. A page that grows for months holds many meetings with no clear edges. A page per meeting has edges, and "today's meetings" becomes the pages created today.

From there, a scheduled task runs late each afternoon. It reads that day's meeting pages, pushes the action items into Asana, and drafts a follow-up email for each client with their action items and the team's. A person reviews every draft before anything goes out.

One of the partners volunteered to build it once and share it with the whole team.

Here's how to try it:

1. Starting Monday, take notes in a new page or doc for each meeting, titled with the date and client.
2. Schedule a daily task for 4:30 PM with something like: "Read every meeting note created today in [folder]. List the action items with owner and due date, add ours to [task tool], and draft a follow-up email to each client with their items and ours. Save the drafts. Do not send."
3. Review the drafts before you log off. Wherever one is off, add a line to the instructions.

I am taking one new client in 2026. Apply to work with me here.

When the spot fills, I'll be looking to 2027. Can't believe the new year is right around the corner!!

Alex