Do you and your team members sometimes lose track of the things you discussed in your project meetings? At a certain point, you will decide to start keeping notes of what goes on in meetings so that you can look back at them later and refresh your memory. This is a great first step, but it is important that you do this properly and in a structured way. This is where meeting minutes come in. Minutes are an official record of the actions and decisions made in a meeting. Sharing information is vital for making the right decisions, assigning priorities and managing tasks across multiple projects. Meeting minutes are supposed to inform its recipients about decisions made, tasks assigned and issues discussed.
At one point or another, you may be given the responsibility of taking meeting minutes. There’s no need to panic, we’re here to tell you everything you need to know about how to do this correctly and efficiently. This article will cover what meeting minutes are, why they are important and how to write them properly.
So, why is taking meeting minutes important?
Minutes serve as a historical document of your project’s timeline. By looking back at previous meeting minutes, you can see what progress has been made and what still needs to be accomplished. Additionally, meeting minutes are also useful for those absent to know what was discussed and what decisions have been made.

How to Take Meeting Minutes

When it comes to meeting minutes, preparation is key! Before you start taking meeting minutes, decide what you aim to achieve from the meeting. This will help you structure your notes accordingly.

In terms of what to include in your meeting minutes, here’s a list of things that you should absolutely always have in your meeting notes:

1. Time and Date – This will be useful in the future should you ever need to look back on how and why certain decisions were made.

2. Names of Attendees – It will be important in the future to know who was present at the meeting when certain things took place. An additional tip is to note down names of attendees who were supposed to attend but were unable to.

3. Purpose of the Meeting – Try to be specific when noting down why the meeting was called and what it aims to achieve.

4. Agenda & Discussion Items – The agenda can be used as a general outline of the structure for the meeting. Always send the agenda in advance, so that participants have time to prepare. For tips on how to write a meeting agenda that you will actually stick to, check out this article.

5. Action Points – Productive meetings come as a result of actions being assigned to participants. Note these down accurately to avoid miscommunication in the future.

6. Relevant Documents – You should include any documents that were referenced into the minutes report so that participants can access information quickly and easily.

Best Way to Record Meeting Minutes

While a lot of people take meeting minutes either by hand or on their laptop, it is stressful to be speaking, listening and taking notes at the same time. This is why people usually dread the task.

However, there is a tool that you can add to your project management arsenal that will make writing meeting minutes a simple and efficient process – Notiv!

Notiv is an AI-powered notetaker that records, transcribes and summarizes your meetings in real time.

So how does it work?

First, schedule your meeting as normal, using your Google or Office calendar. Select which meetings you want Notiv to attend. When your meeting begins, Notiv will automatically join. This can be on Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or WebEx. During the meeting, Notiv will take notes and create action points based on what is being said, as it is being said.
After your meeting ends, Notiv will send you an email with the recording, transcript and summary of your call which you can share with meeting participants or those who need to be aware of what happened during the meeting.

An added feature that we want to highlight is that Notiv allows you to search the transcript for a specific word or phrase, saving you time from having to read through the entire thing just to remember a small detail.

So not only is it a huge time-saver, but it also takes away the stress of having to participate, listen and take notes!

To learn more about Notiv, click here.

Sharing Meeting Minutes + Free Template

Projects often stall due to poor follow-up procedures, which is why it is extremely important to send meeting minutes soon after the meeting ends. Not only will it be easier for you to turn your notes into proper sentences while the memory of the meeting is still fresh in your mind, but it will also serve as a reminder for attendees of what was discussed and what is expected of them before the next meeting.
We have a great article that outlines everything you should include in a follow up email after a meeting. If you want to learn more about this, click here.
As mentioned before, you can effortlessly share your meeting notes via Notiv. Chances are, you get paid to produce results. So stop wasting time on manual note-taking and use a software like Notiv to do it for you while you focus on having productive conversations instead.
If you do, however, decide that you prefer to take notes yourself, we suggest using a template to help. There are thousands of templates online for you to choose from but here’s one we personally like.

Conclusion

The purpose of project management is to communicate information to all project participants in a clear and understandable manner. This should be the goal of every set of meeting minutes. As a result, they should be written in such a way that anyone who isn’t directly involved in the project can comprehend what was discussed at the meeting. If something is unclear, it is important that you seek clarification. Everything should be worded as factually as possible.
In this article, we outlined why taking meeting minutes is important, what to include in them and the one simple tool that can be a game-changer for how you do it.
Chat to us today to start recording your meeting minutes with Notiv.