Need a meeting minutes template right now? Copy the format below — it is the same structure professional minutes follow everywhere: header, attendees, agenda, decisions, action items with owners and due dates, and follow-ups. Paste it into Word, Google Docs or an email and fill it in. Further down, we explain what belongs in each section (and what to leave out), plus how to get this exact template filled in automatically from a phone recording of the meeting.
Download the editable Word template. No account needed. Or copy the text below.
The template (copy this)
MINUTES OF MEETING
Meeting: [What the meeting was about]
Date & time: [12 Aug 2026, 4:00 pm]
Venue: [Office / site / call]
Attendees: [Names, with roles if useful]
Prepared by: [Your name]
1. SUMMARY
[2–4 sentences: what the meeting was about and what happened.]
2. KEY POINTS
- [Important point discussed]
- [Important point discussed]
3. DECISIONS
- [Decision actually made — not things "discussed"]
4. ACTION ITEMS
| # | Task | Owner | Due date |
|---|-----------------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [What, exactly] | [Who] | [When] |
5. FOLLOW-UPS / PARKED
- [Open questions to pick up next time]That's it. A one-hour meeting rarely needs more than one page of this.
MoM sample format, filled in
A template is easier to use once you have seen it full. Below is an example, written for this page, of the same template after a routine weekly team meeting. The people and numbers are made up; the shape is what matters.
MINUTES OF MEETING
Meeting: Weekly sales & dispatch review
Date & time: 16 Sep 2026, 10:00–10:35 am
Venue: Head office, first floor (Arjun joined by phone)
Attendees: Neha Shah (Sales), Arjun Patel (Dispatch),
Kavita Joshi (Accounts)
Prepared by: Neha Shah
1. SUMMARY
Two customer orders are late because of a packing-material
shortage. The team agreed to prioritise the larger order and
tell the second customer today. Pending payments were reviewed;
one account is now overdue by more than 45 days.
2. KEY POINTS
- Packing material arrives Thursday; until then dispatch can
complete one of the two pending orders, not both.
- The smaller customer has accepted delays before but asked to
be told in advance.
- One distributor's payment is overdue by more than 45 days;
two earlier reminders got no reply.
3. DECISIONS
- The larger order ships first, on Thursday evening.
- No new orders to the overdue distributor until the payment
is cleared.
4. ACTION ITEMS
| # | Task | Owner | Due date |
|---|----------------------------------------|--------|----------|
| 1 | Call the second customer with new date | Neha | 16 Sep |
| 2 | Confirm Thursday material delivery | Arjun | 17 Sep |
| 3 | Send overdue notice to the distributor | Kavita | 17 Sep |
5. FOLLOW-UPS / PARKED
- Whether to keep a buffer stock of packing material —
Arjun to bring supplier options to next week's meeting.Three things this sample does that weak minutes do not: the summary can be read on its own by someone who missed the meeting; the decisions are settled outcomes, not topics; and the parked item has a named person, so it actually comes back next week. For a longer worked example with a discussion section and a covering email, see how to write minutes of meeting.
What each section is actually for
Summary. Two to four sentences, written for the person who didn't attend. If your boss reads only this, they should know what happened.
Key points. The important things said — not everything said. Five to eight bullets is plenty. Anything that changed someone's understanding of the project belongs here; small talk and repetition do not.
Decisions. The most valuable section, and the one most templates get wrong. A decision is something the group settled: "PO will be signed Monday after delivery is confirmed." "We discussed the PO" is not a decision. Six months later, this section is the one people search for.
Action items. Every task needs three things: what, who, and by when. "Someone should follow up with the transporter" is how work gets dropped. "Priya confirms Friday delivery with the transporter, by Thursday" is how it gets done. One owner per task — "we" is not an owner.
Follow-ups. Questions raised but not answered, topics parked for the next meeting. Writing these down is what makes your next meeting shorter.
Common mistakes that make minutes useless
- Writing a transcript instead of minutes. Minutes are the distillation, not the dialogue. (If you want the full who-said-what too, record the meeting — see below.)
- No owners on action items. Unowned tasks are wishes.
- Sending them three days later. Minutes lose value by the hour. Same-day is the standard to aim for.
- Skipping the decisions section. It's the part that prevents the "but we never agreed to that" argument.
For a deeper walkthrough of the writing itself, see our guide on how to write minutes of meeting.
The faster way: fill this template automatically
Typing minutes takes 20–40 minutes after every meeting, and it's the reason most meetings never get any. The alternative: record the meeting on your phone and let software produce this exact structure.
MeetNotes does precisely that for in-person meetings — put the phone on the table, record, and you get a transcript with speaker names plus minutes in the format above: summary, key points, decisions, and action items with owners and due dates. It exports a polished PDF and an editable Word file, so the output drops straight into whatever your company already does with minutes. There is no language to pick before you record — it transcribes what the room actually speaks, mid-sentence switching included, and writes your minutes in any of 100+ languages. No hardware recorder needed — your phone is enough. See what comes out of a recording: minutes of meeting generator.
FAQ
Is there a Word version of this template?
Yes — download the editable Word template, or paste the format above into a blank Word document and save it as your own template (File → Save As → Word Template). If you use MeetNotes, every meeting already exports as a Word file in this structure, pre-filled.
How long should minutes of a meeting be?
One page for a typical one-hour meeting. If your minutes run longer, you are probably transcribing instead of distilling — move detail into an appendix or attach the transcript.
Who should write the minutes?
Traditionally the most junior person in the room, which is exactly why they're often thin. A recording removes the conflict between participating and note-taking: whoever ran the meeting can produce the minutes afterwards without having typed a word during it.
