Welcome to The Productivity Playbook – our running series on tools built to make us faster, sharper, and a little less drained at work. This week: Granola, a very neat AI-powered note-taker that handles the messy parts of meetings so you can actually focus on the people in front of you.
Before I dive in: as always in this series, this is an independent review, not a sponsored post.
Why It Matters
Meetings aren’t going anywhere. But the way we survive them? That’s up for grabs. Too often we spend meetings half-listening while scribbling half-thoughts, only to realize later we missed the actual decision.
“If you’ve ever been “voluntold” to take notes and then realized later you missed the actual decision, you know the pain.”
That’s where AI note-takers step in. They’re everywhere right now, and most do a solid job with transcription. But many are built for sprawling enterprises – overloaded with features that feel heavy if you’re running a smaller, faster-moving team.
Having worked in creative groups and now building The Subthread, I know how easily ideas vanish when you’re bouncing from one brainstorm to the next. That’s where Granola shines. It’s lightweight, quick, and doesn’t disrupt the flow. Instead, it just catches what you’d otherwise forget.
