Typed & pasted
The capture box: type one sentence about someone and Groupthink files it. Paste longer notes too.
On this page
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.
Where the box is
It sits at the top of the left sidebar on every page, under the placeholder Say something…
- 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 after the name, which is your cue to look.
When that happens and your sentence named more than one person Groupthink recognised, a button for each of the others appears under the line: File to {name} instead, with the person's name in it. Click one and the note moves to that person. The line then names them, and check this is right goes away.
Only the person the note is filed to counts it as being in touch. The other people the sentence names get the note on their timeline, because it is about them, but it does not change when you last met them or where they stand against their cadence. If you did see them too, use Log interaction and add them under Also with.
A note in the capture box counts as meeting that person, so it moves their Last meeting, even when the sentence describes a text or an email. To log a text or an email as contact without a meeting, use Log interaction and pick Text or Email under How did it happen?
If your sentence named someone who is not one of your contacts yet, Groupthink asks before adding them: Maya Okafor isn't one of your contacts yet. Add them? with an Add Maya Okafor button. If the name could be more than one of your contacts, it asks Which Maya? Nothing was added. and shows each contact it could be, plus Someone new. Once you add someone, the line under the box says Added Maya Okafor as a new contact. The name links to their new page. If that person is really someone you already have, click Should this be someone else? next to it. It opens the new contact's page with Merge duplicates already open, so you can fold the two together.
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. When Groupthink is sure you asked a question, the answer appears below it. When it is less sure, it files the line and shows an Answer it here link instead. Either way, Open in 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: a link that starts That was a question and ends ask instead
- On something we answered: a link that starts That was an update and ends 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, click Wrong person? Move it under the box. It opens the note with a person picker so you can choose who it belongs to. What Groupthink learned from the note moves with it. If the note was not filed to anyone, the same link reads File it to someone. The same Move to someone else is on the note's row under Conversations, and on the note's card under Past interactions on the person's page (see Relationship Intelligence).
Groupthink matches the sentence to your contacts by name. If someone is in your people list only as an email address, Groupthink offers them as a choice when the address fits the name you typed, such as felix@ for Felix. You see Which Felix? Nothing was added. with that person, plus Someone new. Pick them if it is the same person.
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 Wrong person? Move it is how a misrouted note gets moved.
Pasting notes or a transcript
For longer text, such as meeting notes or a transcript, open the + New menu and choose Paste or attach a file… Paste or type into the Drop anything box and click Capture. You don't have to say who it's about first. Groupthink saves it and reads it, and then asks who it belongs to:
- If the text mentions people you already have, you see Who is this about? with a button for each likely match. Click one to file it to that person.
- If not, you see Attach to a contact, with a search box where you can find anyone or create a new contact.
- Skip for now leaves it saved but not filed to anyone.
New people found in a transcript
If what you pasted is a transcript with speaker names at the start of lines, like this:
Priya: Thanks for making the time.
Sam: Of course. How did the launch go?
Priya: Better than we hoped.
Sam: Great to hear.
Groupthink picks out the speaker names that don't match anyone you already have and offers each one as a button, such as Create new contact: Priya and Create new contact: Sam. One click creates the contact and files the capture to them.
A few details:
- A name is only offered if it starts at least two lines, so a label that shows up once doesn't count. Common labels that aren't people, like "Note:", are ignored.
- Your own name is never offered, and neither is anyone who already matches one of your contacts, so you don't end up with duplicates.
- Timestamps before a name, like "[00:12:34] Priya:", are fine.
- You get up to five of these buttons.
- If nothing matches and no names are found, Groupthink says it couldn't tell who this is about, and you can search or create the contact yourself.
Starting a meeting instead
At the right end of 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 for longer material, such as pasted notes and files
- Copy my open times: see 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 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.