Meeting Notes & Action Items

Meetings are a goldmine of information buried under hours of conversation. AI extracts the gold and discards the small talk.

The Meeting Summary Prompt

Here are my raw notes from a [type] meeting on [date]:
[paste notes]

Attendees: [list]

Create a professional meeting summary with:
1. Meeting overview (1-2 sentences — what was the meeting about?)
2. Key decisions made (numbered, with who decided)
3. Action items (who is doing what, by when)
4. Open questions/parking lot items (things that need follow-up)
5. Next meeting date and proposed agenda items

From Transcript to Action

If you have a full transcript (from Otter.ai, Teams, Zoom, Fireflies, etc.):

"This is a transcript from a 45-minute product planning meeting. Extract:

- The top 3 priorities that were agreed on (with who championed each)

- Any disagreements or unresolved issues (and between whom)

- ALL action items with assigned owners and deadlines

- Any deadlines or dates mentioned

- Risks or concerns raised

Ignore small talk, pleasantries, and off-topic tangents.

Format the output so it could be pasted directly into Slack or email."

The Follow-Up Email Generator

After summarizing, automatically draft the follow-up:

"Based on this meeting summary [paste summary], write a follow-up email to all attendees that:

- Thanks everyone for their time (briefly)

- Lists the key decisions (so everyone's aligned)

- Lists action items with owners and deadlines (bold the owner names)

- Mentions the next meeting date

- Asks attendees to flag anything that's missing or incorrect

Tone: clear and efficient. Under 200 words."

Quick Daily Standup Format

"Convert these standup notes into a clean format:

[raw notes from each team member]

Format per person:

[Name]

- Done yesterday: (bullet points)

- Doing today: (bullet points)

- Blockers: (bullet points or 'None')

At the end, add a 'Team Summary' section: overall velocity, shared blockers, and items that need cross-team coordination."

Extracting Commitments

People make commitments in meetings that they (and everyone else) forget:

"Read this meeting transcript and identify every commitment made by every person. A commitment is any statement where someone says they will do something or promises a deliverable. Format:

| Person | Commitment | Context | Deadline (if mentioned) |

Include implicit commitments too (e.g., 'I'll look into that' counts)."

Building a Meeting Knowledge Base

Over time, meeting summaries become institutional memory:

"Here are summaries from the last 4 weekly team meetings [paste summaries]. Identify:

1. Recurring topics (what keeps coming up?)

2. Action items that were assigned but never completed

3. Decisions that were made and then revisited (scope creep alert)

4. Trends in team concerns or blockers

5. Suggestions for improving the meeting format"

Tips for Better Meeting Documentation

1. 1.Record meetings (with permission) and use AI transcription tools
2. 2.Take rough notes during the meeting, polish with AI after — don't try to write perfect notes live
3. 3.Share the AI-cleaned version with attendees for correction within 24 hours
4. 4.Build a template once, reuse it for every meeting of that type
5. 5.Track action items in a separate system (Asana, Notion, Jira) — meeting notes get buried
6. 6.Review past meeting summaries before the next meeting — AI can prep you in 2 minutes