# Titles for meetings notes in denote or org-roam

**URL:** <https://forum.systemcrafters.net/t/titles-for-meetings-notes-in-denote-or-org-roam/933>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [August 19, 2024, 4:30pm UTC](https://forum.systemcrafters.net/t/titles-for-meetings-notes-in-denote-or-org-roam/933 "2024-08-19T16:30:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![birchpoplar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@birchpoplar](https://forum.systemcrafters.net/u/birchpoplar)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 4:30pm UTC](https://forum.systemcrafters.net/t/titles-for-meetings-notes-in-denote-or-org-roam/933/1 "2024-08-19T16:30:24Z")

</div>

Hi,

Wondering how users of org roam or denote handle note titles (+filenames) for recording meeting notes.

Most of what I do right now works great: I have a note file per client, and under a Meetings/Calls heading I add a sub-heading that either has text in that same file, or is a denote/org roam link to separate note file. This way I can clock time on the sub-heading for client billing. I add an inactive time stamp so easy to see when the meeting occurred (and searchable)

However, I can end up with lots of similar note titles/filenames e,g. “Check in call with Sam”, “Weekly staff call” etc. etc.

I tend not to search by the note title/filename so this might not really matter, but I’m wondering how people deal with taking meeting/event notes in org roam/denote (I’m moving a lot of my work to denote actually). Are there examples of auto-generating meeting note titles based on time/date with optional description? Am I missing a useful structure/use case?

Thanks.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![treeblah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@treeblah](https://forum.systemcrafters.net/u/treeblah)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2024, 5:25pm UTC](https://forum.systemcrafters.net/t/titles-for-meetings-notes-in-denote-or-org-roam/933/2 "2024-08-20T17:25:53Z")

</div>

The method that I’ve found works best for me is to break each set of notes into weeks, where one org file contains the complete notes for my entire week. I use denote for this with a standard filename scheme: `week-YYYY-WW__journal_weekly.org`.

I have a little command that automates creating these weekly entries, and if one already exists for the current week, opens it for editing.

```auto
(defun my-denote--weekly-template ()
  (concat "* Friday"
          "\n\n"
          "* Thursday"
          "\n\n"
          "* Wednesday"
          "\n\n"
          "* Tuesday"
          "\n\n"
          "* Monday"
          "\n\n"
          "* Notes"))

(add-to-list 'denote-templates `(weekly . ,(my-denote--weekly-template)))

(defun my-denote-weekly ()
  "Find or create a weekly journal entry."
  (interactive)
  (let* ((title (concat "week-" (format-time-string "%G-%U" (current-time))))
         (pattern (concat ".*--" title))
         (matches (denote-directory-files-matching-regexp pattern)))
    (if matches
        (find-file (car matches))
      (denote title '("journal" "weekly") 'org nil nil 'weekly))))

```

The template itself looks something like this:

```auto
#+title: week-2024-33
#+date: [2024-08-20 Tue 10:23]
#+filetags: :journal:weekly:
#+identifier: 20240820T102354

* Friday

* Thursday

* Wednesday

* Tuesday

* Monday

* Notes

```

Where I add particular meeting as subsections for each day.

If I think it’s worth breaking out some notes into an independent section, I’ll create a separate note w/ Denote and add a link to it in my weekly journal.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mirkoh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@mirkoh](https://forum.systemcrafters.net/u/mirkoh)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2024, 9:10pm UTC](https://forum.systemcrafters.net/t/titles-for-meetings-notes-in-denote-or-org-roam/933/3 "2024-08-22T21:10:26Z")

</div>

@treeblah I’ve been using something similar but without the template, I just write the daily entries in the journal directory but your approach to grouping them by week seems interesting.

@birchpoplar I gues you could create a meetings directory and organize them creating a file for each week. Then you could tag them or use the signature to add context to the file (and org properties and heading tags for individual items ).

```auto
(defun my/denote-week ()
  (interactive )
  "Create a weekly journal entry." 
  (let* (
	 (title (format-time-string
		 "%B %e %Y"))
	 (denote-user-enforced-denote-directory (concat my-denote-base-directory "/journal/weeks"))
	 (journal-entry (directory-files-recursively
			 (concat my-denote-base-directory "/journal/weeks")
			 (denote-sluggify 'title title ))))
    (if journal-entry 
	(find-file (car journal-entry))
      (denote title nil 'org nil nil nil "week"))))
		    
(defun my/denote-goto-week ()
  (interactive)
  "Find the last week file." 
  (let* ((weeks (denote-directory-files
		 "journal/weeks.*"))
	 (last-week (-last-item weeks)))
    (when last-week
      (find-file last-week))))

```