An exec at a $2 billion video-game app uses an old-school strategy to get the most out of meetings

• Roblox executive Grace Francisco has been coding since she was a teenager, but when it comes to business meetings or note taking, she prefers pen and paper.
• She uses two separate notebooks for work and to-do lists to adjust priorities.
• Sheryl Sandberg, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson all use notebooks as part of their regular routines.

Roblox executive Grace Francisco has made a career out of technology, but when it comes to business meetings or note taking, she leaves technology out of it.
“I’ve been coding since I was a teenager – but when it comes to taking notes and tracking my to-do list I go with paper and pen,” Francisco told Business Insider.
As the vice president of developer relations at Roblox, an online video-game platform for kids and teens valued at around $2.5 billion, Francisco spends her days focusing on accelerating the success of developers. While her work is focused on the technical side of things, she omits technology in work meetings.
“Taking notes on a laptop distracts from the meeting and can prevent you from really engaging in a discussion because others in the room aren’t sure if you are checking email or listening,” she said.
Francisco has two notepads to keep work notes and personal to-do lists separate. “This helps me adjust my priorities and cross out things that are complete in a clean way,” she said.
“My most successful note-taking strategy is to only write down the salient bits of a discussion in my notebook, otherwise I don’t retain the information as well,” Francisco said. “Similarly for my to-do list, I find satisfaction in writing out a list day to day and feeling gratification in crossing out those things I’ve accomplished.”
Read more: Here’s why writing things out by hand makes you smarter
Handwriting notes is a slower process than typing, which helps retain information. Transcribing every word that’s said in a meeting doesn’t require critical thinking, but writing down key phrases by hand signals the brain that a piece of information is important, Business Insider previously reported.
Handwriting notes may seem archaic in the tech world, but it’s a common organizational hack used by at least a few successful CEOs and execs. Sheryl Sandberg, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson all use notebooks as part of their regular routines.
Source: Business Insider
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