For managers

Remember your team fairly.

You are tilted toward what is recent. Your notes do not have to be. By review season you remember the last six weeks and the most emotional moment, not the year. Five reports, five years of work, one head. It does not fit.

Five reports, five timelines. Walk into every 1:1 already caught up.

Start with one note See how it works

Who it is for

Built for managers carrying several people’s years at once.

If you run recurring 1:1s, write reviews for several direct reports, and want to give everyone credit for their whole year, this is for you. Notivo is the private place that whole year lives, organized by person, so the work nobody else saw is not the work you forget.

What managers use it for

Five jobs, one private memory per person.

Each one runs on the same simple loop: capture a line, tag the person, read it back when it counts.

1:1 notes

Type @Sarah, see everything since your last 1:1.

Every 1:1 starts from history, not a blank doc. Great questions are easy. Remembering the answers is the hard part. Capture a couple of lines after each meeting, tag the person, and your next prep is reading what is still open instead of reconstructing it.

One-on-one notes, per person

Sam @Sam

Prepare 1:1

4notes this month

2open follow-ups

Strongcontext

Recent moments

Blocked on design sign-off again — third week running. Process problem, not a Sam problem.3 days ago

Asked to lead the growth experiment. #growth2 weeks ago

Walked the new hire through on-call.3 weeks ago

Performance reviews

Write reviews from a year of notes, not last week.

At review time, read the year and fill the template: pull two or three dated examples per competency, and write each rating from evidence. “Delivered strong results” becomes “Shipped the billing migration Feb to Mar, zero downtime, unblocked 3 teams.” Notivo is your own record that helps you remember the whole year. It is not a guarantee of fairness and makes no decision for you.

Performance review prep Beat recency bias in reviews

Maya @Maya

Prepare 1:1

6notes this month

1open follow-up

Strongcontext

Recent moments

Slower stretch on the reporting project — worth naming kindly.2 weeks ago

Mentored two juniors through their first on-call.4 months ago

Led the billing migration: zero downtime, three teams unblocked.6 months ago

Feedback notes

Specific feedback needs a specific dated moment.

“Be more proactive” lands as noise. “When the client escalated on the 22nd, you stayed calm and reset the scope” lands because it is real. Because every note is filed under @person with a date, your feedback is drawn from actual entries, not a recent impression.

Constructive feedback examples

Promotion signals

Bank the moment a report stepped up.

A promotion case is a year of breadcrumbs you have to remember at exactly the wrong time. Capture the moment it happens (“Jordan ran the incident call calmly while two senior eng panicked, Mar 12. Use in promo case.”), and you walk into calibration advocating with dated evidence instead of a feeling.

Manager notes, per person

New note

@Jordan ran the incident call calmly while two senior eng panicked. Use in promo case. #promo

Saved

Recap

Read the month back before a review.

Pick a window — this week, last week or this month — and Recap reads back everyone you wrote about in it, grouped by name. The per-person timeline you have been keeping all along is what it reads. Part of Notivo Pro.

Sam 24 notes

Design sign-off bottleneck raised with the design lead #process

Led the growth experiment end to end

Maya 19 notes

Billing migration shipped with zero downtime #billing

Jordan 12 notes

Ran the incident call; two teams escalate to him now

What Notivo does today

Live features, no waiting list.

Everything in those five jobs runs on features that work right now. The loop is the whole product: jot a line, tag a person or topic, read it back when it counts.

Start with one note

Capture on the web in five seconds. A few lines after the moment. No transcribing, no new habit to force.
Tag @people and #topics. Type @Sarah or #onboarding and the note files itself, dated.
Per-person and #topic timelines. Each report becomes one running, dated story you can read end to end.
Search and export anytime. Find any name or topic across every report; take your notes with you.
Private by default, on secured infrastructure. Account-scoped notes. You decide what is ever shared.

A notebook, not a tracker.
Give everyone credit for the whole year.

Notivo captures your observations as a manager so you can support and guide your team. It is not a way to watch people. The point is to remember fairly, not to keep score.

Common questions

A few things managers ask first.

Is it OK to keep private notes on the people I manage?

Yes. Keeping your own notes on your reports is normal and is for your recall, the same way you would jot anything in a notes app. What you write is yours: a memory aid, not an HR record and not a decision. Notivo is private by default and account-scoped, so you choose what is ever shared.

How does Notivo help me run better 1:1s?

You capture a couple of lines after each 1:1 and tag the person with @name. The note files into that person timeline, dated. Before the next 1:1 you type the name and read what happened last time, what is still open, and your coaching note. Prep becomes reading, not remembering.

Can this make my performance reviews less recency-biased?

It helps. When you capture short dated notes per person all year, January wins stay visible in December. At review time you read the whole period and tie each rating to a logged, dated moment instead of leaning on the last six weeks. Notivo is your own record, not a guarantee of fairness or a decision-maker.

Is this surveillance or employee tracking software?

No. Notivo is a private notebook for your own use, not a tracker. It captures your observations as a manager so you can support your team and remember the whole year fairly. It makes no employment decisions and is not HR software.

Remember your team fairly

Start with one note.

One person, one line, today. By review season you will have the whole year instead of the last six weeks.

Start with one note See the product