How to Take Meeting Notes: Effective Tips

Need help remembering most of the information shared in a meeting shortly after it ends? Have no fears — you’re not alone. Learning how to take meeting notes helps make good decisions and record critical ideas and action items.

Knowing how to take good meeting notes clarifies essential conversations and critical discussions and helps you stay organized. Also, it ensures that you capture and retain the key points discussed.

However, knowing how to write meeting notes isn’t enough. This article explains meeting notes and how they differ from meeting minutes. Also, it explores various note-taking techniques and unveils all you need to know about effective note-taking, including the five Rs.

Finally, this article shows how a leading AI Meeting Assistant creates notes with exceptional accuracy to keep participants engaged, informed, and on task.

What Are Meeting Notes?

Meeting notes are notes taken during an online gathering, capturing key discussion points, decisions, and action items. Whether you’re looking for effective techniques or just learning how to take meeting notes, no need to worry. Note-taking is one of the biggest challenges most professionals face.

Knowing how to take notes for a meeting is a critical reference for future follow-ups. It helps you remember vital information. Moreover, learning how to take effective meeting notes enables you to record quick bullets or type out detailed transcripts and master this art.

Additionally, you create structured and insightful notes by applying effective strategies. As a result, you can stay organized and productive and enjoy high collaboration among your team.

Finally, in our increasingly AI-driven world, knowing how to use AI to take meeting notes effectively further increases productivity and efficiency.

Meeting Notes vs Meeting Minutes

Though some people use these terms interchangeably, you should distinguish meeting notes from minutes. Specifically, the first ones are less formal and capture the essence of the content discussed.

Besides, they’re often shorthand and clarify critical conversations and decisions. That’s why notes are widely used among project managers who usually use a template for one-to-one or kickoff meetings and project plans.

The term “meeting minutes” originated from the Latin phrase “minuta scriptura.” The latter means “small notes.”

What Are Meeting Minutes?

Minutes are formal and detailed records of meetings that follow a specific structure. That’s why they serve as formal documents used by auditors or in court proceedings. Unlike notes, minutes provide a comprehensive highlight of the entire gathering, including:

• Date
• Time
• Location (physical or online)
• Names of attendees
• Names of absentees
• Agenda
• Discussions
• Key decisions
• Action items

What’s the Main Difference Between Meeting Notes and Meeting Minutes?

Do you want to learn how to take meeting notes or minutes? The choice depends on the following:

• Meeting context
• Organizational preferences
• The formality of the meeting
• The level of detail required
• The audience
• The purpose of the documentation.

Specifically, notes are preferable for regular and informal team gatherings and project kickoffs. In contrast, minutes are suitable for formal meetings requiring detailed documentation, such as official company or board meetings or public hearings.

Before Learning How to Take Notes During a Meeting: Structure

“The majority of meetings should be discussions that lead to decisions,” said Patrick Lencioni, a true pioneer in leadership and business. So, how to take meeting notes effectively so your discussions can result in valuable decisions? Let’s get this show on the road.

Create Format

Unlike formal and standardized meeting minutes, meeting notes follow a flexible format. You can stick to your writing style or meeting notes template. Also, use abbreviations and symbols to capture critical information. That’s why templates are typical of meeting minutes.

Know the Level of Detail

Learning how to take notes in a meeting also means knowing what details to record. Specifically, you should only focus on essential information based on the key discussion points and action items. As a result, you can create a concise summary based on the most vital aspects.

In contrast, meeting minutes are more detailed and comprehensive. Moreover, they may contain verbatim or near-verbatim transcriptions, resolutions, and all the decisions made.

Know the Usage

What else should you learn to know how to take meeting notes? They’re generally intended to be taken for the note-taker’s reference. However, sharing the notes with participants isn’t something you should avoid.

In contrast, meeting minutes are intended for a broader audience and may be distributed to a wider range of stakeholders to maximize engagement. In this case, a broader audience means a larger and more diverse audience, enabling enhanced business collaboration.

Choose Which One to Use

Meeting notes are appropriate to use for:

• Team meetings
• One-on-one meetings
• Brainstorming sessions
• Internal discussions where a less formal record is sufficient

Meeting minutes are ideal for the following:

• Board meetings
• Committee meetings
• Meetings with legal implications.

Benefits of Meeting Notes

What are the benefits of knowing how to take meeting notes?

• Having optimal information retention by jotting down the key discussion points

• Enhanced productivity by remaining focused and engaged, especially during a meeting notes template, instead of wasting time on note-taking

• Improved clarity by transforming complex discussions into more digestible summaries.

• Keeping vital discussion points amidst the noise by knowing how to mute the sound on Zoom or a similar online communication platform.

• Accountability by using notes as a reference for action items, decisions, and deadlines.

• Facilitated follow-up by holding participants accountable for their post-meeting actions.

• More robust decision-making by using the notes as a reference for further insights and perspectives to resolve similar concerns.

• Successful conflict resolution by using the notes to clarify what was discussed, preventing misunderstandings.

• Continuous improvement thanks to recurring and repetitive discussion points during regular organizational gatherings.

How to Take Meeting Notes with Krisp More Effectively

“AI helps with creating algorithms to automate every aspect of our life,” says Arto Minasyan, cofounder of Krisp.ai, a leader in Productivity Voice AI. Krisp’s Note-Taking feature helps you learn how to take meeting notes with unmatched productivity.

Krisp’s Meeting Transcriptions with 96% Accuracy

Users consider Krisp Transcriptions exceptionally accurate and straight to the point. That’s why Krisp is the best answer to “How to take board meeting notes?”

Krisp as a Pioneer in AI-powered Voice Productivity

Krisp pioneered the first AI-driven Voice Productivity software in the world. Today, this AI Meeting Assistant has already been deployed on 200M+ devices.

Krisp’s Meeting Recording, Transcription, Notes, and Summaries

Krisp offers best-in-class audio quality for meeting recording through background noise cancellation. Also, this AI Meeting Assistant generates real-time transcripts with stellar speaker recognition and automatically summarizes them.

Specifically, Krisp automatically identifies the key points and action items. After the meeting, you can share your notes with your coworkers so everyone is on the same page.

Krisp as a Leading Meeting Assistant for Productivity & Efficiency

By automating note-taking and eliminating the hassle of manual note-taking, Krisp boosts meeting productivity. Moreover, Krisp is your best friend to help you learn how to take notes in a template to curate your agenda. And that’s it: you never miss a vital detail.

Krisp works with any virtual conferencing platform or application, including Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and Slack. No plug-ins are required. Moreover, you can choose between a bot-free or bot-assisted experience.

Identifying Krisp’s Key Features and Benefits

Let the technology do the heavy lifting. Make your note-taking effortless.

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• Free and unlimited real-time transcriptions in multiple languages
• Automated, AI-generated notes and summaries in real time
• Effortless distribution of notes to enhance collaboration and accountability

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• Ease of use
• Competitive pricing
• Excellent usability
• Meticulously documented details
• Without many bells and whistles
• Reduced length of meetings to eliminate meeting fatigue
• Simplified tracking of follow-ups and action items for enhanced accountability and alignment
• Improved productivity and efficiency through automated note-taking
• Minimized risk of missing critical details due to distractions and information overload
• Easy access to critical decisions and information for stakeholders
• Quick review of meetings using the transcripts
• Facilitated management of the overwhelming amount of data
• Saved valuable time to eliminate burnout
• Meeting recording through your computer’s microphone and speakers: no need to add a bot that may distract participants
• A widget in the desktop version toolbar lets you quickly turn the note-taker on and off. Also, it lets you adjust the microphone and speaker settings and view and join upcoming gatherings.

How to Take Notes During Zoom Meeting Automatically

Do you want to know how to take notes during a Zoom meeting hassle free?  Automate this process by using an AI-powered meeting assistant.

1. Start your Zoom call as usual.
2. Record the discussions
3. Transcribe the conversation in real time.
4. Highlight the key points and action items.
5. Research the transcript later after saving it to revisit specific points.

As a result, you can focus on participating in the discussion without worrying about missing critical details.

How to Take Meeting Notes in Teams

What about knowing how to take notes in Microsoft Teams?

1. Begin your Teams call as usual.
2. Record the discussions
3. Take notes
4. Organize and save your notes for future reference
5. Review and share your notes with your team

How Do You Make Meeting Notes Look Professional?

What should you avoid doing when taking notes during a meeting to make your notes look professional?

• Use a clean, structured template with sections for the date, time, attendees, agenda, key points, and action items.
• Write clearly and concisely.
• Avoid jargon.
• Use bullet points for easy readability.
• Bold or italicize vital decisions and action items.
• Be consistent by sticking to a uniform font and style throughout the document.

Here is an example of how to take notes professionally:

Meeting Date: June 15, 2024

Attendees: John, Jane, Sarah

Agenda:

• Project Update
• Budget Review

Key Points:

• Project Update: Tracking the project for July completion.
• Budget Review: Approved additional $5,000 for marketing.

Action Items:

• John to finalize the budget report by June 20.

By following these tips, your meeting notes will look polished and professional.

What Are the Five Rs of Note-Taking?

Have you heard about the five Rs of note-taking? How can they help you get the most out of your notes?

Here is what the five Rs of note-taking suggest:

• Record all the critical information by capturing key points, dates, names, and details supporting your decisions.

• Reduce by summarizing your notes to highlight only the main ideas to make the info more digestible.

• Recite by reviewing your notes and trying to recall the key points from memory.

• Reflect by making connections, asking questions, and considering implications regarding what you’ve written.

• Review by regularly revisiting your notes to keep the information fresh.

How to Take Meeting Notes with Effective Tips

“When leaders know how to lead great meetings, there’s less time wasted and less frustration. We have more energy to do the work that matters, realize our full potential, and do great things,” said Asana Inc.’s cofounder Justin Rosenstein.

So, learning how to take meeting notes means knowing how to take good meeting notes to save time and eliminate frustration. Let me show you how:

• • • Prepare well in advance by creating a compelling meeting agenda to anticipate the topics and discussions.
    • Use technology, such as Krisp’s automatic Note-Taker.
    • Record the discussions to save them for future reference.
    • Note the date and time of the gathering.
    • Organize your notes.
    • Use a template.
    • Take notes before the meeting to avoid missing a point.
    • Write down the meeting purpose.
    • Jot down the names of attendees and absentees.
    • Use shorthand.
    • Include action items.
    • Focus on what comes next.
    • Include the meeting location.
    • Note the adjournment time.
    • Remember the course of action.
    • Document decisions.
    • Include only the most relevant context.
    • Keep your notes brief and concise.
    • Use a consistent format to avoid missing critical discussions, even when you’re hit with virtual meeting fatigue or unable to concentrate. A template will help in this regard.
    • Be selective, focusing only on the most vital discussion points and summarizing the main ideas, key insights, and action items.
    • Send your meeting notes to the relevant stakeholders immediately or soon after the meeting to foster transparency and ensure that participants stay on the same page.
    • Don’t forget about the virtual meeting etiquette to ensure that only those who need to participate can stay.

Sum Up

Meeting notes are informal records that capture key discussion points, decisions, and action items during gatherings. In contrast, meeting minutes are more formal and suitable for official documentation.

Learning how to take meeting notes effectively using efficient note-taking strategies is vital. Because it helps you stay organized, recall key takeaways, enhance productivity, and ensure important details are kept, ultimately improving effectiveness.

Importantly, using the AI Meeting Assistant Krisp for real-time note-taking, transcriptions, and automated summaries significantly enhances productivity. As a result, you can improve information retention and stay prepared and practical in your work.

Frequently Asked Questions