I've also been a plain emacs then org-mode note taker for a number of years. I keep a log.org file with dated items containing notes from meetings and major project actions of the day. I generally have my laptop open during meetings making notes in realtime. After a meeting, or whenever, I'll tag things and note any follow ups, TODOs or things to remember.

I have a terrible memory for proper nouns but I can generally remember enough context so that a quick backward search in my notes buffer can get me back to the name of the person, team, customer, project, action item etc that I'm looking for. (EG it probably has this tag, or it came up during my meeting with Riley, or last Monday, or during the sprint planning meeting etc). I'm now fast enough at this that I can often start talking and do a search in time to mention the 'thing' by the time I need to refer to it.

I see this model as somewhat different than the more reflective, bi-directional link driven, PKM tools being discussed here. Its a great feeder into such a system (IMO) where more active curation can take place. Plus even if there's never any curation I still have all my todo's, calendaring etc accessible to org's agenda features!