How to save a note about someone in Groupthink

Most of what you learn about people doesn’t happen on a recorded call. Someone mentions at lunch that their daughter starts college in the fall. A client tells you in the hallway that the launch has moved. By the next time you talk, you have forgotten half of it.

Groupthink is a memory for the people in your life and work. Recorded meetings fill it in without any typing. For everything else you write a note. There are two ways to do that, and this post starts with the one that works for every person in your account.

The example here is Ines Vargas, who runs a small design studio and opened her account last week. On Tuesday she ran into Felix Aurand at a conference. Felix might hire her to redo his company’s website.

Open the person and click Log

Open Relationships in the sidebar and click the person. In a new account, most of your people came from your calendar and are listed by email address until you give them a name. Felix is one of them.

Saving his name takes a few seconds and is worth doing now. If a guessed name is shown near the top of his page, click Save under it. If there is no guess, click the address at the top of the page, replace it with the name and click Save.

Then click Log, near the top of the page. A short form opens:

• Also with… (optional) adds anyone else who was there. The note goes on their page too.
• Title (optional) is a short name for it, such as “Coffee after the conference.”
• Date starts as today. Change it to the day you talked. + End date is there for a visit or a trip that ran several days.
• How did it happen? (optional) has one-click answers such as In person and Phone.
• Interaction notes (optional) takes anything you paste or type, from one line to a page of rough notes.

Ines set the Date to Tuesday, picked In person and typed:

Ran into Felix at the design conference. He is moving the website launch to March, and his new marketing lead starts in January.

A title alone is enough to save, so “Dinner with Felix” and a date is a complete entry. Click Save. Groupthink reads what you wrote, and the form tells you when Felix’s profile has been updated.

Every field on the form is covered in the help center under Log an Interaction.

What saving a note changes

The note shows on the person’s page under Past interactions, and Groupthink reads it for details worth keeping, such as the March launch date.

It also counts as being in touch with that person on the Date in the form. That date is what Last interaction shows on their page, and it is what the Going Cold list measures from. So set the Date to when the conversation happened.

Ines remembered on Friday that Maya Okonjo had mentioned a move to Lisbon when they spoke in September. She opened Maya’s page, clicked Log, set the date to that September call and typed one line. Maya’s last interaction stayed in September, where it belongs.

The faster way, once someone has a saved name

At the top of the left sidebar there is a box that reads Say something…. Click it, or press Cmd+K on a Mac (Ctrl+K on Windows) to put your cursor there from anywhere in the app. Type a sentence that names the person and press Enter:

Felix Aurand called. The March launch is confirmed.

The box clears, and a line under it says where the note went: Filed · Felix Aurand. The name is a link to Felix’s page, so you can check it.

The box is quick, and it has limits. It finds people by their saved name, so for someone still listed by email address it doesn’t file the note and asks “Felix Aurand isn’t one of your contacts yet. Add them?” Clicking Add Felix Aurand makes a second contact and puts the note there, and the line says “Added Felix Aurand as a new contact.” Next to it is Should this be someone else?, which lets you merge the new entry into the person you already have. The box always dates the note today, so it counts as contact with that person today, whenever the conversation happened. If a note lands on the wrong person, click Wrong person? Move it under the box and pick the right person. A note can’t be deleted yet.

If your sentence reads as a question, Groupthink tries to answer it and the line starts with Asked. The sentence is still saved on the person it names. A question doesn’t count as contact with them.

When to do it

The best moment is right after the conversation, while you still remember what the person said. One line is enough.

It matters most in your first weeks. A new account already has the people from your calendar, but it knows little about them until you record a meeting or write something down. A note on each of the people you are seeing this week gives you something to read on their page before the next call.

Open Groupthink, open the last person you talked to and click Log.