How to write meeting minutes LIKE A PRO [With meeting minutes example!]
Summary
TLDRThis video script offers a comprehensive guide to writing effective meeting minutes, emphasizing the importance of preparation, note-taking, and organization. It outlines four key steps: preparing in advance by understanding the meeting agenda, writing the notes during the meeting, rewriting for clarity and readability, and finally, storing or sharing the notes. The script also provides examples of formal and casual meeting minutes, highlighting the necessity of capturing facts, problems, decisions, actions, and questions. The goal is to create concise, searchable, and easily accessible records that facilitate future reference and action.
Takeaways
- 📝 **Importance of Meeting Minutes**: Writing meeting minutes is crucial for tracking work, remembering discussions, and noting future actions.
- 📅 **Preparation is Key**: Prepare in advance by understanding the meeting agenda and preparing a template for note-taking to appear professional.
- 📋 **Agenda-Based Structure**: Use the meeting agenda to structure your notes, ensuring you cover all discussed points.
- 👥 **Participant List**: Include a list of participants, especially for formal meetings, to keep track of attendees.
- 🔗 **Link to Presentations**: If there's a PowerPoint presentation, add a link to it in the notes for easy reference.
- 📝 **Decisions and Actions**: Clearly document decisions made and actions to be taken, including responsible persons and deadlines.
- ✍️ **Digital Note-Taking**: Opt for digital note-taking over analog for easier sharing, storage, and editing.
- 🔍 **Focus on Key Elements**: During the meeting, focus on recording facts, problems, decisions, actions, and Q&A for comprehensive notes.
- 📖 **Rewriting Notes**: Rewrite notes post-meeting to clarify, correct spelling, and ensure they are understandable to others.
- 🗂️ **Storage and Sharing**: Store and share meeting notes in a searchable format, such as OneNote, and distribute them via email or a shared platform.
Q & A
Why are meeting minutes considered important in professional settings?
-Meeting minutes are crucial for keeping track of work, remembering discussions, and noting future actions, ensuring that all participants are on the same page regarding decisions and responsibilities.
What are the four steps involved in writing effective meeting minutes?
-The four steps are: preparing in advance for the meeting, actually writing the notes, rewriting the notes for clarity and readability, and storing or sharing the notes after the meeting.
Why is it recommended to prepare an agenda before a meeting?
-An agenda helps structure the meeting and allows the note-taker to anticipate the flow of discussion, making it easier to capture relevant points during the meeting.
What is the significance of having a meeting minutes template?
-A template ensures consistency and helps the note-taker quickly organize and format the minutes, making them professional and easy to follow.
How can including a list of participants in the meeting minutes be beneficial?
-A list of participants provides a record of who attended the meeting, which is useful for assigning follow-up actions and for reference in case of questions about who was present.
Why is it important to add a link to a PowerPoint presentation in the meeting minutes?
-Adding a link to a PowerPoint presentation allows easy access to visual aids and supporting materials, enhancing the usefulness of the minutes for future reference.
What should be included in the decision-making section of the meeting minutes?
-The decision-making section should include the decisions made, the rationale behind them, and any notes explaining the context or reasoning for the decisions.
How can actions be effectively documented in meeting minutes?
-Actions should be clearly stated with the responsible person, a deadline, and a brief description of what needs to be done, ensuring accountability and follow-through.
Why is it advised to rewrite meeting notes after the meeting?
-Rewriting notes helps to correct any errors, clarify unclear points, and summarize the content, making the minutes more readable and useful for future reference.
What are some best practices for storing and sharing meeting minutes?
-Meeting minutes should be stored in a searchable format, such as OneNote, and shared via email or a collaborative platform like a team site, ensuring easy access and retrieval for all participants.
How can the note-taker ensure that meeting minutes are concise and to the point?
-By focusing on capturing facts, problems, decisions, actions, and questions and answers, and summarizing these points effectively, the note-taker can create concise and informative minutes.
Outlines
📝 Effective Meeting Minutes Writing
This paragraph emphasizes the importance of writing meeting minutes for tracking work progress and remembering discussions and future actions. It introduces the video's purpose, which is to guide viewers on how to write meeting notes, with examples provided for both formal and casual settings. The speaker outlines a four-step process: preparing in advance, writing the notes, rewriting for clarity, and storing or sharing the minutes. The preparation includes familiarizing oneself with the meeting agenda and possibly using a template for structure. The speaker also demonstrates a formal meeting minutes template using OneNote, highlighting the inclusion of a title, date, time, list of participants, agenda, decisions, and actions with assigned responsibilities and deadlines.
🖥️ Writing and Rewriting Meeting Notes
The speaker advocates for digital note-taking over traditional methods due to ease of sharing and storage. They discuss the benefits of writing notes in real-time during meetings to capture facts, problems, decisions, actions, and questions and answers. The paragraph also stresses the importance of rewriting notes post-meeting to ensure clarity and comprehensibility. The speaker suggests focusing on key points and summarizing information to make the minutes concise and accessible. They also recommend using a platform like OneNote for easy searchability and accessibility for team members.
💌 Sharing and Storing Meeting Notes
The final paragraph discusses the methods of sharing and storing meeting notes. For casual meetings, the speaker suggests summarizing key points and emailing them to attendees. For more formal settings, they recommend using a centralized platform like a team site or SharePoint to archive the notes. The paragraph concludes with a call to action for viewers to subscribe for more work-related tips and ends the video on a positive note, wishing viewers a great week and promising to see them in the next video.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Meeting Minutes
💡Agenda
💡Template
💡Participants
💡Decisions
💡Actions
💡Digital Writing
💡Rewriting
💡Summary
💡Storage and Sharing
Highlights
Writing meeting minutes is crucial for tracking work and remembering discussions and future actions.
Meeting notes can be improved by preparing in advance, using templates, and ensuring clarity and readability.
Agendas should be included in meeting notes to provide structure and a reference for note-taking.
Templates for meeting minutes can be formal or casual, depending on the meeting's nature.
Meeting minutes should include titles, dates, times, participants, and agendas.
Linking to presentations within meeting notes can provide easy access to visual aids discussed.
Decisions made during meetings should be clearly documented with rationale and any necessary explanations.
Actions and responsibilities post-meeting should be detailed with assigned persons and deadlines.
Casual meeting notes can be taken using built-in functions of note-taking apps like OneNote.
Digital note-taking is preferred for ease of sharing, storing, and rewriting compared to analog methods.
Focus on capturing facts, problems, decisions, actions, and questions during the meeting for comprehensive notes.
Rewriting meeting notes is essential for clarity and understanding, especially after quickly jotting down points.
Meeting notes should be concise, with a summary highlighting the most important points for quick reference.
Clear identification of decisions, responsible parties, and deadlines in the notes prevents misinterpretation.
Sharing and storing meeting notes should be done in a searchable format for easy access and reference.
For casual meetings, decisions and actions can be emailed to attendees, while formal meetings may require a centralized repository.
Using platforms like OneNote and Teams for meeting notes ensures accessibility and searchability.
Transcripts
writing meeting minutes is crucial to be
able to keep track of your work it's a
great way to remember what's being said
in the meetings and what future actions
you have ahead of you maybe you've just
been assigned to write meeting notes on
your next big student group presentation
or project group meeting or maybe you
just want to be better at writing
meeting minutes in general well for both
of these cases this is the video for you
i'm also including some meeting minute
examples so stick to the end of this
video to make sure that you actually see
those i would say that there are
basically four different steps that you
go through when you write meeting notes
which i would say is preparing in
advance for the meeting actually writing
the notes rewriting the notes to make
sure that they are readable and then
storing or sharing it or whatever you
want to do with them after the meeting
so starting with preparing you should be
prepared in advance to make sure that
you can write effective notes just a
couple of minutes of preparing in
advance can make you look so much more
professional and make everything go so
much smoother so i would say that the
first step is just to write the agenda
most good and professional meetings have
an agenda and you should probably do the
meeting based on that agenda so you can
put it in the meeting notes in advance
so that you know the structure for the
whole meeting the next step i would say
is to prepare some kind of template or
do some kind of preparation for how the
meeting notes should look and i'm gonna
switch to my computer in order to show
you what my more formal meeting notes
would look like okay so here you have my
more
formal meeting minute example a lot of
companies have their own meeting minute
templates so check if your company has
one because then it's probably best that
you use that one but if you don't have
one this example is really simple and
easy to create so as you can see i have
meeting minutes in onenote which i think
is really good the first thing you
should do is to
have a title for the meeting minute
this date
is really good to use in onenote because
then you can just change the date there
and the time
and then you have the date and time
ready available you should have both a
title and a date then you should also
have a list of participants if it's a
more formal meeting
if you want to you can do a list just as
i have so you can check the people you
can do it simply by just
having this list and go to the discuss
with person checkbox it's really good to
have the agenda written out if
there has been an agenda sent out to the
meeting in advance you can just add that
there
and then it's really simple to see all
the points that were discussed during
the meeting
while just skimming over the notes if
there's been a powerpoint presentation
to the meeting i usually like to add a
link to it so that it's simple to find
it and goes quickly then of course you
should write out any decisions that were
made during the meeting
and any notes regarding that decision if
there's something that needs explaining
add that into the decision notes so that
you know the rationale behind why the
decision was made and of course any
actions that needs to be done after the
meeting anything that is
in regards to what's going to be done in
the project simple things like
john doe is going to send jane doe the
template for how to do the work all
those small tasks add them into the
actions right which person is
responsible to complete the action and
what the deadline is while you're
writing the notes i would say just use
this
notes field where you have the headline
i usually do the headlines as the agenda
items that way it's just simpler to
follow along and then after the meeting
it's really good to write some kind of
summary about what was said
just highlight the most important things
that were discussed during the meeting
so jumping into how to write more casual
meeting notes
i usually just do it like this i also
write the title of the meeting and then
of course the date and the time
and then i have this sample system
i use the built-in
functions of onenote basically to see
what actions need to be taken any
decisions made and any like questions
for me to look up and the way that i do
it is that i just have the notes
i usually divide it up based on the
agenda items as usual because it's just
the simplest way to do it guys it's so
simple
and then i just write any text and then
as soon as someone comes with an action
i just click ctrl 1 because that's the
shortcut for the to do and then i'll
just write that john
and then some kind of
goal date
there you go
not any more difficult than that okay so
the actual writing i would say that
writing digitally is so much better than
writing in an analog way because
you probably write the meeting in order
to be able to share them or store them
or something like that and that is so
much easier to do if the meeting notes
are digital in some cases there's
probably better to write on paper like
if you were going to an interview or
something or holding an interview it
might not be so nice to throw up a
computer in the face of the other person
but still
i would say we're so used to using our
computer so
it's so much better to just take the
notes digitally from the beginning it
also saves you a lot of time when
rewriting them when you're actually
writing the notes there are a few things
that i believe that you should focus on
when writing and those are first of all
any facts that come up in the meeting
like the project will be delayed by two
weeks or that the client has contacted
one of the people in the meeting asking
for status updates those types of things
facts or things that have happened those
are really good to write down then any
problems that you're facing because it's
really important to lift those and share
them so that everyone is aware of them
and can help everyone else to solve them
one of the most important things to
write down are the decisions that are
made in the meeting especially if the
meeting is based on some kind of
decision forum like a steering group or
some kind of leadership meeting if
you're a project manager you know that
the decisions are basically the most
important thing
and having them written down is also
really important so that you can share
that this is what we agreed on because
people forget so easily why you took
that decision and that the decision
actually was made so
yeah you should also focus on writing
down any actions or next steps that
you're planning on taking any actions
that come up during the meeting that the
person should send the document or that
person y is responsible of contacting
the client again all of those things
should be written down with a clear
deadline in order to make sure that they
do them and then also any questions and
answers because if one person is asking
a question then probably a lot of other
people are wondering the same thing so
capturing the question and capturing the
answer to that question is also really
good to have in the meeting notes when
you're writing the notes in the meeting
you should try to capture as much as you
need in order to rewrite the notes and
for them to be understandable but not
include all the stuff in between and
this is really hard if you're just
starting out but it gets easier with
experience and if you make sure to focus
on those five things that i just said
facts problems decisions actions and
questions and answers the meeting notes
will be much more summarized and
comprehensive at the same time the
rewriting step is really important but i
think a lot of people skip this
especially if the meeting notes are only
for yourself
but the thing here is that when you're
writing notes in the meeting
you will be writing quickly and
you might writing spelling errors and
you might write something that is based
on how people talk and not how you would
write in text and that's a big
difference at least for me my sentences
are not complete sentences when i've
just been in the meeting notes i really
need to rewrite them in order for anyone
else to understand them so you need to
read through your meeting notes clarify
anything that is unclear
spell check
everything you should always rewrite the
meeting notes as soon as you possibly
can after the meeting because then you
have everything fresh in your head
and it makes it so much easier to
remember
what people actually meant with what
they said also try to summarize
everything as good as you can because no
one is going to read long meeting
minutes they are probably just going to
read the basic facts and the summary and
some specific things
if they're actually looking for
something
also if someone is going back looking
through old meeting notes they want to
be able to skim through it as quickly as
possible and
they don't want to skim through heaps of
text so try to make it as short and
concise as you possibly can and then
just like you saw in the template be
very very clear about the decisions that
were made and why they were made and
also any next actions who are
responsible for them and what deadline
do they have make that super clear so no
one can misinterpret that when you've
rewritten the notes then it's time to
share and store them
so you can do this in a couple of
different ways i would say if it's a
casual meeting i would probably just
lift out the decisions and the actions
and maybe a few information points and
just stick them in an email and email
the people that were at the meeting and
then they get the notes in an email
format
if it's a bit more formal you probably
want to have those meeting notes
collected somewhere like in a team site
or sharepoint site so that everyone can
read them when they need to have that
information also when you store the
meeting notes i would say to try to keep
it in a format that is easily searchable
so that is
not word
if you have the meeting notes in a
separate document it will be really hard
to search for the content that is in
that document
so i usually prefer to write my meeting
notes in onenote because it's easily
searchable
everyone can access the onenote and add
it into their own onenote and there's
also onenote available on teams as a
separate page i hope you learned some
new tips and tricks for how to write
meeting notes and found the meeting note
examples interesting if you're
interested in more work related tips
make sure to subscribe to my channel and
watch this video next have an awesome
week and i'll see you in my next video
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