How to Take the Best Meeting Notes (With Templates)

To put it simply: note-taking makes any brainstorming, process, or project meeting better for everyone.

It’s a powerful engine to build a productive work culture for the future. But humans aren’t machines, so we need the right systems to remember and recall information we’ve heard.

Did you know your memory starts to decline within the first 24 hours you first learned something? This is called the Forgetting Curve. It measures how quickly we forget information over time if we do not attempt to retain it.

the forgetting curve created by hermann ebbinghaus shows how information we learn declines over time if we don't write it down — Source: eLearning Industry

It’s not only up to our memory strength to retain information from meetings, but the approach to capturing and communicating the information to ourselves and others.

In this guide, we give you the templates, tools, and tips to transform your virtual and in-person meeting productivity so you’ll feel confident in your note-taking system!

How to Take the Best Meeting Notes (With Templates)

Before the Meeting

In Reclaim.ai’s Productivity Trends Report, they learned professionals spend an average of 21.5 hours in meetings—over half a standard workweek!

Productive meetings are essential to the success of a healthy, growing business. As a team leader, project manager, or executive, you are tasked with nurturing processes and activities so every employee has the meeting tools and resources to get work done.

Use an itinerary template to plan your next meeting!

Allow your meeting attendees to contribute to the meeting agenda. This will accomplish two important things:

Your attendees have a good idea of the meeting cadence and how their time will be spent
Your notes will be richer in information and authority because different perspectives, subject-matter expertise, and knowledge are organized in one place

Tip 2: Use the meeting agenda to take notes

Your meeting agenda is the best environment for taking meeting notes because you’ve already outlined all the topics, key points, questions, and goals in one place. Especially when you’re facilitating the meeting and taking notes, it’s a challenge to juggle both activities.

The agenda helps you navigate from one topic to another while monitoring the meeting’s progress. If too many side conversations happen and meeting attendees get off-topic, you can direct everyone back on track. If you’re falling behind on time, you can skip or speed through less important topics.

More importantly, you should avoid the trouble (and unnecessary stress) of switching back and forth between the meeting agenda and a blank page for notes.

If you have the responsibility of taking meeting minutes—notes and decisions captured in formal meetings that require approval from senior leadership—check out our various free meeting minutes templates:

good meeting notes start with a meeting minutes template to support different note taking methods — Double a ClickUp meeting agenda template as a notes document

Download Meeting Minutes Template

During the Meeting

Tip 3: Filter the most important information

Somewhere between the ums and likes, there are important details to pay attention to when a person is speaking in a stream of consciousness. But with a little context, confidence, and creativity, you’ll be a note-taking wizard in any meeting scenario.

Here’s what this looks like:

Listen for the clues and cues the speaker is giving you for context

The rule of thumb is to be prepared for everything. But listen for any emphasis placed on what they’re saying, questions asked, and explanations shared that will affect the project/task/goal.

Be confident and ask the speaker to clarify what they’re saying

To summarize one point and not hear the key details of the next is something we all experience while taking notes! If you’re lost in what they speaker is saying, chances are, other attendees are too! The last thing you want to do is share misinformation. These meeting notes will be referenced later in time, so you need the truth and nothing but the truth! (Your team members will thank you later.)

Get creative and observe those around you

Is there someone in your workplace who nails meeting productivity every time? Who makes great meeting notes and conversations look so effortless? Take a mental page from their book and observe how they make the people in the room engaged and motivated. What comes out of the quality of their meetings is clear meeting notes that inspire action.

If you don’t have a person that comes to mind, we got you! At ClickUp, we are obsessed with focusing on efficiency and output.

Download ClickUp Docs Guide

The key to our meeting productivity success is organizing toward action. Our ClickUp Docs are always mobilized for teams in every time zone to get the information they need right away.

Here’s a peek at the four standard sections in our meeting notes: Action Items, Resources Needed, Follow Up, and Conversation Recap.

Take detailed notes in a clickup doc during a team meeting to keep team members on the same page and prepared for the next meeting — Write meeting notes in ClickUp Docs

Tip 4: Tag team members in the document for follow-up

Working with cross-functional and multi-time zone teams calls for an accountability helping hand. People are jumping from one meeting to another and can forget to complete their action items or follow-ups.

Remember the Forgetting Curve?

ClickUp teams use the @mention and comment features regularly within Docs to track, update, and collaborate on work. This is perfect to keep together our related side conversations and the “I just remembered!” thoughts.

When people are tagged in a comment, they will see their names highlighted in their notification feeds.

Identify important call-outs and action items as you scan your notifications

After the Meeting

Tip 5: Keep up the momentum with a meeting recap

Approach this tip with the mindset no one has time to read through the meeting notes. Especially if management needs a quick status or recap about what happened, you’ll want to provide this brief overview in a friction-free location.

Each meeting should have a dedicated, recurring task to bridge relevant team members, Docs, and even other tasks for past, present, and future meetings.

How it works: Post a recap of key points in the task along with the meeting notes linked. You’ll save yourself and others time in the future from hunting down information. This connects all work in one central workspace and out of inboxes.

If you’re curious about ClickUp and want to start with basic organization, create tasks to organize all your meeting notes—project kick-offs, agile ceremonies, and new hire onboarding—start with the Meeting template!

Download Meetings Folder Template

Building this resource is also a valuable tool for team leaders to monitor the number and quality of meetings everyone is spending time participating in!

Take better meeting notes and meeting minutes from a clickup list — Create a ClickUp List to centralize recurring meetings for everyone to view

Who Benefits from Taking Meeting Notes?

Contractors: Meeting notes are essential for contractors to keep track of any decisions that were made or changes that need to be implemented. Taking notes during a meeting allows them to stay organized and make sure they have the right details from the discussion.

Corporate Companies: Taking meeting notes allows corporate companies to keep track of important conversations and decisions that were made. This helps ensure that everyone involved in the meeting is on the same page, and all team members are aware of any changes or updates.

Bonus Tip: Instantly Capture Short Meeting Notes

Does your Google Drive look like this?

google drive doc example — Example of doing things the hard way in Google Drive

It happens to the best of us!

You’ll sometimes want to jot down quick notes for your eyes only or brain dump thoughts while you’re on a phone call or Zoom meeting. The problem is it becomes nearly impossible to find that one piece of information you know you logged.

For these scenarios, don’t use a Google Doc. Instead, use the ClickUp Notepad—the perfect digital pocket companion for note taking.

Open a meeting note in the clickup notepad to take notes, remember key ideas, and make quick to do lists — Create tasks from the ClickUp Notepad

Learn About Notepad

Access the Notepad from your browser or mobile device to build a repository of thoughts, checklists, and almost-ready tasks in one place! The ClickUp Notepad also includes:

/Slash commands: Format your note with headers, bold fonts, lists, and much more
Drag-and-drop: Add images, gifs, videos, and other files directly into your notes
Search: Search your notes by keywords found in the title or description of a note
Archive/Unarchive: Archive or unarchive your note
Convert: Convert your note to a task—or a Doc!

A final consideration for the best meeting notes experiences: Your note-taking strategies and preferences will evolve over time. When you’re going through your options for the perfect note-taking tool, prioritize customization and flexibility.

The tool of your choice should save you time, not spend your energy. Spending your energy on things like note maintenance takes you away from the work moving the needle in your tasks and projects.

Use a meeting notes template and customize for any note taking method — Use ClickUp Docs to capture talking points, action items, and follow-ups

We know you’ll love the ClickUp Notepad and Docs to create your best note-taking system yet. If you need to work through any meeting productivity challenges, reach out to us anytime!

Access ClickUp Help Center