Meeting notes template

What’s inside

• Header — date, attendees, and the one goal of the meeting.
• Agenda — topics with a time limit each.
• Notes — only what someone would need if they missed it.
• Decisions — numbered, one line each.
• Action items — task, owner, estimate, due date.
• Open questions — what goes on the next agenda.

When to use it (and when not)

Use it for client calls, project kickoffs, weekly team syncs and one-on-ones — any meeting where something is decided or assigned.

It is also worth using for short calls. A 15-minute check-in with one decision and two action items still deserves five lines, because those two items are what people forget first.

Skip it for social calls and brainstorming sessions where the output is a pile of ideas. For those, capture the ideas in a doc or on a board and run a short decision meeting afterward with this template.

How to use it

1. Before: write the goal and the agenda with time limits. Share it a day ahead.
2. During: note decisions the moment they happen, and say them out loud: “So we’re going with the Tuesday launch.”
3. Write action items as tasks, starting with a verb: “Send revised quote”, not “quote”.
4. Give each item an owner, an estimate and a due date before the meeting ends.
5. Within an hour: send the notes and put your own action items in your plan.
6. Carry open questions into the next meeting’s agenda.

How Needt fills it in

Write the notes in a Needt Doc linked to the project. When the meeting ends, ask the agent to pull out your actions:

Turn the action items in today’s Lumen meeting notes into tasks for me, with the estimates and due dates from the doc.

The tasks land in the Clients project and auto-scheduling finds time for them before their due dates, around your other meetings. If the follow-up arrives by email instead, Needt can turn that email into a task too. If the meeting itself moves on your calendar, the day rebuilds around the new time.

A worked example

Lumen kickoff, Wed Oct 14, 13:00–13:45. Goal: agree scope and dates for the homepage refresh.