Meeting minutes template

What minutes are for

Meeting minutes are the record of what a meeting decided and who will do it. Searches for minutes for meetings template and meeting note format want that record, not a transcript. A useful page has the date, the people present, each decision as its own line, and each action with an owner and a date. Discussion that did not end in a decision can be one short paragraph or omitted.

If you used AI meeting notes, paste the decisions into this shape and delete the rest of the draft from the shared page. An AI summary is not minutes until someone checks the names and the dates.

A format you can reuse

Keep one database of meetings for a team. Each row is a meeting. The body uses the same headings every time: decisions, actions, parking lot. A parking lot is a topic you refused to decide today. It is not a second task list. Link an action to a task database if you have one, so the minutes are not the only place the work lives.

• Date and length
• Present, and absent if the absence matters
• Decisions, each in one sentence
• Actions: owner and date

How to set it up

1. Write decisions during the meeting. Read each one back before you move on. That is the check.
2. Assign an owner before you adjourn. An action with no name does not survive the week.
3. Send the page the same day. Minutes that arrive next week describe a meeting people remember differently.