What meeting minutes are, and what they're not
Meeting minutes are the shared record of a meeting's outcomes: the decisions, the actions and who owns them. They exist so that next week nobody has to argue about what was agreed.
| Format | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Minutes | The agreed record: decisions, actions, owners. Kept and sometimes formally approved. |
| Notes | One person's memory aid. Useful to them, not binding for anyone. |
| Recap email | The minutes, shortened for people's inboxes: decisions and actions first. |
| Transcript | Everything that was said. Rarely read, and not a substitute for decisions. |
What to include in meeting minutes
- Meeting name, date, start and end time
- Who attended, who sent apologies, who chaired and who took the minutes
- For each agenda item: a line or two on the discussion
- Every decision, in one sentence, with who made it (a person, or a vote and its result)
- Every action as owner, task and due date
- Topics parked for another time, and the date of the next meeting
Board and committee meetings
How to write meeting minutes in six steps
1Use the agenda as the skeleton
Paste the agenda items in as headings before the meeting starts. You'll fill in under each one instead of writing from a blank page.
2Write decisions the moment they're made
Capture the decision in one sentence, as it's agreed, and note who made it. Read it back if there's any doubt.
3Write every action as owner, task, date
"Priya sends the revised quote by Friday" is an action. "Look into pricing" isn't. No owner or no date means it isn't finished.
4Keep discussion to the points that matter
One or two lines per item on what was considered and why. Minutes are a record of outcomes, not a transcript.
5List what was parked
Open questions and topics moved to another meeting go in their own short list so they don't get lost.
6Send them within the hour
Minutes sent the same day get read and corrected. Minutes sent next week get archived.
Steps one to three are much easier if the agenda was good to begin with. Here's how to write one.
Meeting minutes templates to copy
Plain text on purpose: they paste cleanly into a doc, an email, Notion, Slack or Teams.
MEETING MINUTES Meeting: [Name] Date: [Day, date] · [start]–[end] Present: [Names] Apologies: [Names] Chair: [Name] Minutes: [Name] 1. [Agenda item] Discussed: [One or two lines on what was considered] Decision: [What was decided] (decided by [name or "vote"]) Actions: [Owner] will [task] by [date] 2. [Agenda item] Discussed: … Decision: … Actions: … Parked for later - [Topic], to [meeting or owner] Next meeting: [Date, time]
Subject: [Meeting name] recap: [the main decision, in five words] Hi all, Thanks for today. The short version: Decided - [Decision 1] - [Decision 2] Actions - [Owner]: [task], by [date] - [Owner]: [task], by [date] Still open - [Question], [owner] will come back by [date] Next meeting: [date]. Reply if I've got anything wrong. [Your name]
ACTION ITEMS · [Meeting name] · [Date] # | Action | Owner | Due | Status ---|--------------------------------|---------|----------|--------- 1 | [Verb + outcome] | [Name] | [Date] | Open 2 | [Verb + outcome] | [Name] | [Date] | Open 3 | [Verb + outcome] | [Name] | [Date] | Done
DECISION LOG · [Team or project] Date | Decision | Why (one line) | Decided by | Revisit ---------|------------------------------|------------------------|------------|-------- [Date] | [What was decided] | [Main reason] | [Name] | [Date or "no"] [Date] | [What was decided] | [Main reason] | [Vote 5–2] | [Date or "no"]
Or let the meeting write its own minutes
In Agendiq the agenda is already the skeleton. While the meeting runs, the host captures a decision or an action in a few words as it's said, or the person with the notes part types decisions, actions and notes on their phone. When the meeting ends, the summary is ready: decisions, actions with owners and dates, planned versus actual time for every item, vote results and ideas.
Copy it as text for an email or Slack or print it to PDF, and export every action and decision as CSV from the portal. Calls are never recorded, so there's no transcript to wade through, only the outcomes.