How to write meeting minutes: format and template

Meeting minutes are the written record of what a meeting decided: who was there, what was discussed, what was agreed, and who does what by when. They are not a transcript, and they are not your personal notes. Below is the format that holds up, a template to copy, a full sample from a thirty-minute meeting, and the fastest way to produce minutes from a recording instead of from memory.

What goes into meeting minutes

Good minutes answer four questions for someone who was not in the room: what was this meeting, what was decided, who is doing what, and when do we meet again. Everything else is optional. The fields that cover those questions:

• Meeting name, date and time. “Website relaunch, weekly, 14 Oct 2026, 10:00-10:30.”
• Attendees and apologies. Names and roles. Apologies matter, because an absent person cannot be assumed to agree.
• Agenda. The items in the order they were handled, numbered.
• Per item: a short summary, the decision, the actions. Two or three lines of context, then the decision in one sentence, then each action with an owner and a date.
• Open questions. Anything raised and deliberately not decided, with who will bring it back.
• Next meeting. Date, time, and what has to be ready by then.

The decisions and the actions are the minutes. The discussion is context. If you only have ten minutes to write them up, write the decisions and actions and skip the rest.

Minutes are not a transcript

A transcript records every word. Minutes record the outcome. You need both only in a few settings: board meetings, HR and disciplinary hearings, anything that may end up in front of a lawyer. There, keep the transcript as an appendix and let the minutes stay short. For the difference between a word-for-word transcript and a cleaned-up one, see clean verbatim vs full verbatim.

For every other meeting, a long document is a sign that the writer did not want to decide what mattered. One page is right for an hour-long meeting.

A meeting minutes template

Copy the block below into your document or your team’s wiki. One line per field, so it pastes cleanly into Notion, Google Docs or an email.

Meeting: [name and purpose]
Date and time: [date, start-end, time zone]
Location: [room, or Zoom/Teams/Meet]
Attendees: [name (role), name (role)]
Apologies: [name]
Minutes by: [name]

1. [Agenda item]
Summary: [2-3 lines: what was presented or discussed]
Decision: [one sentence, or "No decision, see open questions"]
Actions: [what] - [owner] - [due date]

2. [Agenda item]
Summary:
Decision:
Actions:

Open questions: [question] - [who brings it back] - [by when]
Next meeting: [date and time] - [what must be ready]

Keep the headings exactly the same from week to week. People find things by position once the format is stable.

Sample meeting minutes

A thirty-minute weekly for a website relaunch, written up the same afternoon. Names are invented, the structure is real.

Meeting: Website relaunch, weekly sync
Date and time: 14 Oct 2026, 10:00-10:30 CEST
Location: Google Meet
Attendees: Maria Keller (project lead), Tom Baxter (design), Priya Nair (development), Jonas Weber (marketing)
Apologies: Lena Fischer (content)
Minutes by: Maria Keller

1. Homepage design review
Summary: Tom presented the second homepage draft. Jonas asked for the pricing block to move above the testimonials because paid traffic lands there. Priya confirmed the hero animation works on mobile Safari after last week's fix.
Decision: Second draft approved with the pricing block moved up. No further design rounds on the homepage.
Actions: Update the Figma file with the new block order - Tom - 16 Oct

2. Launch date
Summary: Development is two days behind on the checkout page. Priya estimates the gap closes by 24 Oct if the content for the FAQ arrives by 20 Oct. Lena's status is unknown because she is out this week.
Decision: Launch stays on 31 Oct. If the FAQ content is not in by 20 Oct, launch moves to 7 Nov. Decision to be confirmed on 21 Oct.
Actions: Confirm the FAQ delivery date with Lena - Maria - 15 Oct; Finish the checkout page - Priya - 24 Oct

3. Analytics
Summary: Jonas wants event tracking on the new signup form before launch. Priya says it is half a day of work and can be done in the launch week.
Decision: Event tracking is in scope for launch.
Actions: Send the list of events to track - Jonas - 17 Oct; Implement the events - Priya - 28 Oct

Open questions: Do we keep the old blog URLs or redirect them? - Jonas brings a recommendation - 21 Oct
Next meeting: 21 Oct 2026, 10:00 - launch date confirmed, Figma updated, events list sent

Notice what is not there: nobody’s opinion is quoted, there are no “it was felt that” sentences, and every action has a name and a date.

How to write minutes from a recording

Taking minutes by hand while also taking part in the meeting is how decisions get lost. The reliable way is to record, transcribe, and write the minutes from the text. It takes about fifteen minutes for a one-hour meeting.

1. Record the meeting. Zoom, Teams and Google Meet all record to the cloud or to a local file; for an in-person meeting, a phone or a browser voice recorder on the table is enough. Tell the participants at the start. You do not need a bot in the call: here is how to record without one.
2. Transcribe it with speaker labels. Upload the recording to Speecho. The audio is extracted in your browser, so even an hour-long video uploads quickly. Turn on speaker identification, and the text comes back as a labelled dialogue with timestamps. Rename “Speaker 1” to a real name once and every line updates. The first 15 minutes are free, after that it is billed by the minute from $0.83 per hour of audio, with no subscription.
3. Generate the summary. From the same transcript, ask for the meeting summary: the main topics, and the decisions and next steps with the owner and the date whenever they were said out loud. This is your first draft of sections 1-3.
4. Fill in the template. Paste the decisions and actions under the right agenda items, trim each summary to two or three lines, and check every name, number and date against the transcript. The timestamps take you to the exact moment, so a doubtful action item is a ten-second check, not a reply-all.
5. Send the same day. Minutes are correctable for about a day after the meeting. After that, they are the record.

From transcript to minutes with ChatGPT or Claude

If you already have a transcript, an assistant can do the first draft. Paste the transcript after a prompt like this one:

Below is the transcript of a meeting. Write the meeting minutes in this format: meeting name and date, attendees, then for each agenda item a 2-3 line summary, the decision in one sentence, and the action items as "what - owner - due date". Only include decisions and actions that were explicitly stated. If an owner or a date was not said, write "owner not assigned" or "no date" instead of guessing. End with a list of open questions. Keep it under one page.

Two cautions. First, models fill gaps: without the instruction above, an unassigned task will quietly get an owner. Keep the transcript open and check. Second, a transcript of a confidential meeting should only go into tools your company has approved for that purpose.

Tips for the person taking the minutes

• During the meeting, write down only decisions and actions. The recording holds everything else.
• Names, not groups. Dates, not “soon”. “Marketing will look into it” is not an action item. “Jonas sends the events list by 17 Oct” is.
• Record disagreement as positions. “Tom proposed X. Jonas objected because Y. Decision deferred to 21 Oct.” Nobody has to be the villain, and the reasoning is there when the question comes back.
• Read the decisions back at the end of the meeting. Thirty seconds, and the minutes are agreed before they are written.
• One running document per recurring meeting. Newest at the top. The open questions carry over until they are closed.

FAQ

What is the standard format for meeting minutes?

Meeting name and date, attendees and apologies, then one section per agenda item with a short summary, the decision and the action items (owner and due date), followed by open questions and the next meeting. The template above is that format.

How detailed should meeting minutes be?

Detailed enough that someone who missed the meeting knows what was decided and what they have to do, and short enough to be read in two minutes. About one page for a one-hour meeting. Formal settings that need a word-for-word record keep a transcript as an appendix.

How do I take minutes if I am also participating?

Record the meeting and write the minutes from the transcript afterwards. During the meeting, note only the decisions and the actions as they are agreed, and read them back at the end.

How soon should minutes be sent out?

The same day. Memory of a meeting decays within hours, and corrections are easy on the day and awkward a week later.

Can AI write meeting minutes?

Yes, from a transcript: the summary gives you topics, decisions and next steps, and an assistant can format them. Check names, dates and anything that reads like a commitment before you send. AI minutes without a human read-through are the fastest way to assign someone a task they never agreed to.