# The Capture Box

> Type one sentence about someone and Groupthink files it.

Source: https://groupthink.com/docs/quick_log/
Last updated: 2026-09-16

At the top of the left sidebar there is one field. Type a plain sentence about someone you talked to and press Enter, and Groupthink works out who it is about and updates your relationship with that person. No form, no contact picker.

The same field takes questions. Ask one and you get an answer in the sidebar, grounded on the record it belongs to.

<video controls preload="metadata" style="width:100%;height:auto;" src="https://wp1.groupthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/quick-log-demo.mp4"></video>

## Where the box is

It sits at the top of the left sidebar on every page, under the placeholder **Say something, or ask…**

- Press **⌘K** (Mac) or **Ctrl+K** (Windows) from anywhere to jump into it. If the sidebar is collapsed, ⌘K expands it first and then puts your cursor in the field.
- If you have collapsed the sidebar to its icon rail, the box becomes a single capture button. Clicking it reopens the sidebar with the cursor already in the field.

There is no separate Quick log window and no **Quick log** row in the sidebar. The box replaced both.

## Filing an interaction

Type one sentence the way you would text a friend about what happened, and press **Enter**:

> grabbed dinner with Theo, he's worried about his Q3 number

Groupthink reads the sentence, works out who it is about, and files what matters onto your relationship with that person. A line appears underneath saying what happened:

> **Filed** · Theo Marchetti

The name is a link, so you can go straight to the person's page and check where the note landed. If Groupthink was not confident about who you meant, the line adds **— check this is right**, which is your cue to look.

An interaction does not have to be a meeting or a call. Anything worth remembering about a person counts:

- "Maya seemed underwater in standup today"
- "Ines got promoted to director"
- "ran into Dave at the airport, his kid made the travel soccer team"

## Asking a question

Type a question instead and Groupthink answers it in the sidebar, using the record it routed to:

> what did I promise Ines about the hiring plan?

The read-back line reads **Asked · Ines Vargas**, the answer appears below it, and a link to the Advisor lets you keep the conversation going. A question is filed as well as answered, so nothing you type is ever lost because we decided it was rhetorical.

## If Groupthink reads you wrong

The confirmation carries a one-tap correction:

- On something we filed: **That was a question — ask instead**
- On something we answered: **That was an update — file it**

Tapping it re-runs the same line the other way. You do not have to retype anything.

If a note landed on the wrong **person**, open that person's page, find the entry, and use its correction menu to **Refine** or **Reassign** it.

> **Note:** the box files first and lets you correct afterwards. An earlier version of Quick log held a note back and asked you to pick between two people with the same name before writing anything. That step is gone: the note is committed when you press Enter, and the correction menu on the person's page is how a misrouted note gets moved.

## Starting a meeting instead

Next to the field is a solid **+ New** button. Its menu holds the things that are not captures:

- **New Google Meet** — start a fresh call right away
- **Join by link…** — paste a Meet, Zoom, or Teams link and send Groupthink to it
- **Record on this Mac** — private desktop recording (on the web this reads **Get the desktop app to record**, because the browser cannot record)
- **Paste or attach a file…** — opens the [Capture page](/docs/capture_uploads) for longer material
- **Copy my open times** — see [Availability](/docs/availability)

New users see a one-line tip under the box: _"Start or join meetings with New. Type anything else here."_ Dismiss it with the × once you have the hang of it.

## Where the notes go

Groupthink reads what you filed and adds what it learns to the person's page, attributed to you. From there it feeds the same relationship intelligence as your meeting notes: the [Daily Brief](/docs/daily_brief) will use it to prep you before your next meeting with that person.

## Tips

- Name the person directly in the sentence ("Caught up with Ines about hiring"). That is what Groupthink uses to route the note.
- File it while it is fresh. The whole point is that the capture costs one sentence, so do it in the hallway, not at the end of the week.
- Watch the read-back line. It is one line and it tells you both what we did and where it went.

## Related

- [Relationships](/docs/relationships)
- [Daily Brief](/docs/daily_brief)
- [Recover Your Notes When the Notetaker Misses a Meeting](/docs/recover_meeting_recap)
