What to capture
Most meeting notes fail because they try to record everything that was said. Four things are worth keeping: decisions that were made, actions that someone agreed to take, facts and figures you will need again, and questions nobody could answer. Write an action as a full sentence with a name and a date, such as "Dana sends the revised quote to the client by Thursday." An action without an owner belongs to no one, and an action without a date is a wish.
A page that works
Put the date, the subject and the attendees at the top, because in six months those are what you will search for. Keep one running document per project or per person, newest entry first, instead of a new file for each meeting. Paper or screen is a matter of taste, with one caution: a laptop lid up in a small meeting looks like email, so say aloud that you are taking notes. Before everyone leaves, read the actions back to the room, which takes one minute and catches the misunderstandings while the people are still present.
The recap
Send a short written recap within twenty-four hours.
- Open with one line naming the meeting and its date.
- List the decisions, each in a single sentence.
- List the actions with an owner and a due date for each.
- Note the open questions and who is chasing each answer.
- End with a line inviting corrections by a stated day.
A recap matters most after a verbal agreement. When your manager approves something in the hallway, a two-line message that begins "Confirming what we discussed" turns a memory into a record.
Following up without nagging
Put the due dates from your notes into your calendar or task list the same day. Check in a day or two before a deadline rather than after it, and ask whether anything is in the way, which reads as help and not as policing. When a request of yours goes unanswered, reply on the same thread after three or four working days so the history travels with it, state what you need and by when, and make the reply easy by offering a choice of two answers. After a second silence, call or walk over.
Tip Spend the last five minutes of each workday reading that day's notes and moving every action of yours onto tomorrow's list. Notes nobody rereads are no better than no notes.
