Meeting notes template: 5 free templates to copy
A good meeting notes template gives you the headings to fill in before the meeting, plus a place for decisions, action items and open questions afterwards. Below are five templates: weekly team meeting, one-on-one, client meeting, project kickoff and retrospective. They’re all in Markdown, so you can copy them straight into your notes app.
What makes a good meeting notes template?
Every meeting exists for a different reason, which is why the templates differ. They do share a spine, though: meeting name and date, who attended, what’s up for discussion, decisions, and action items with an owner and a due date.
The rest depends on the meeting. In a one-on-one, following up on last time matters most. In a client meeting it’s the other side’s objections and the next step. In a retrospective, it’s what will actually change.
A template also gets you ready before the meeting starts. When the agenda is already written, you’re filling in blanks during the meeting instead of working out what to write down.
Don’t fill it in alone, either. Share the agenda part with attendees a day ahead and people add their own items, which saves the ten minutes usually lost to “can we also talk about…?”
When you copy one, fill in the brackets and delete any heading you don’t need. In Markdown apps like Notion, the - [ ] lines become checkboxes.
1. Weekly team meeting template
Weekly meetings turn into habit and then they sprawl. This one keeps updates short and moves anything that’s stuck into its own section.
# Weekly team meeting: [date]
Attendees: [names]
Notes by: [name]
## From last week
- [ ] [last week's action items, done or not?]
## Quick updates
- [name]: [what's done, what's in progress]
- [name]: [...]
## Blockers
- [item]: [why it's stuck, what's needed from whom]
## Decisions
- [decision]
## Action items this week
- [ ] [owner]: [task] ([due date])“From last week” sits at the top for a reason. If last week’s promises aren’t checked before new work comes in, the list grows every week and nothing closes. A minute or two per person is enough for updates, and anything that needs detail moves to Blockers.
If you run a team, the qatip for managers page may be useful too.
2. One-on-one (1:1) meeting template
A one-on-one is worth what its continuity is worth. If you don’t pick up where you left off, every 1:1 starts from scratch.
# 1:1: [name] / [name], [date]
## From last time
- [ ] [what was promised in the last 1:1]
## Their agenda
- [topics the report brings]
## My agenda
- [topics the manager brings]
## Feedback
- [both directions, with a concrete example]
## Growth and goals
- [goal, where it stands, what's needed]
## Next steps
- [ ] [owner]: [task] ([due date])Their agenda sits above yours on purpose. The meeting is theirs first. There’s more on running these on the one-on-one meetings page.
3. Client meeting template
Taking notes while talking to a client is hard, because your attention belongs to the person in front of you. This template splits what you fill in beforehand from what you fill in after.
# Client meeting: [company], [date]
Attendees (them): [name, role]
Attendees (us): [name, role]
## Before the meeting
- Goal: [what this meeting should produce]
- What we know: [notes from the last conversation]
## Their needs
- [what they want, in their own words]
## Objections and questions
- [objection]: [how we answered]
## What we promised
- [what, by when]
## Next step
- [ ] [owner]: [task] ([due date])
- Next meeting: [date]Keep the “in their own words” part honest. If you paraphrase a client’s need into your own language, you’ll misremember it by the next call.
After the meeting, paste the “What we promised” section straight into your follow-up email. Both sides then look at the same list, and the next call opens with it.
4. Project kickoff meeting template
Anything left unsaid at a kickoff tends to come back mid-project as an argument. Writing down what’s out of scope matters as much as what’s in.
# Project kickoff: [project name], [date]
Attendees: [name, role]
## Why this project?
- [the problem it solves, and for whom]
## Scope
- In: [what we'll do]
- Out: [what we won't do]
## How we'll know it worked
- [what we'll look at when it's done]
## Roles
- Decides: [name]
- Drives: [name]
- Kept informed: [names]
## Timeline
- [milestone]: [date]
- [final delivery]: [date]
## Risks and assumptions
- [risk]: [what we'll do about it]
## First steps
- [ ] [owner]: [task] ([due date])Put a single name next to “Decides.” When two people share the decision, decisions either stall or get made twice. List milestones, not just the final date, because that’s where the first slip shows.
Project managers can find more on the project managers page.
5. Retrospective template
Plenty of retros end on a good conversation and change nothing. That’s why the last section of this template asks for two or three things to try next time, each with an owner.
# Retrospective: [sprint / period], [date]
Attendees: [names]
Facilitator: [name]
## From the last retro
- [what we tried]: [did it work?]
## What went well
- [...]
## What was hard
- [...]
## What we learned
- [...]
## What we'll try next
- [ ] [experiment]: [owner]
- [ ] [experiment]: [owner]Don’t skip “From the last retro.” A retrospective that never checks whether the last experiment worked ends up writing the same list every time.
Try rotating the facilitator too. When the team lead always runs it, “What was hard” tends to stay short, because people find it harder to say what bothers them most in front of their manager.
How qatip fills in your own template
If you’d rather not fill these in by hand, add the same sections to qatip as your own template. The template decides which sections a report has, and qatip records the meeting and writes the report with those sections a few minutes after it ends.
- Open Templates in qatip.
- Tap + New template and add the headings from one of the templates above as sections (for example “From last time”, “Their agenda”, “Next steps”).
- Use Make default on the one you use most. New meetings get their report written with it.
- To see a meeting through a different template, pick another one from the Template option under the report. The same meeting is rewritten with that template.
Action items from every report also land in one list, with owners and dates. Your templates show up on all your devices. The Template library has ready-made templates by field, and any template you add becomes yours to change as you like. If you need a formal record of the meeting instead, see the example and template in how to write meeting minutes. Plans are on the pricing page.
Questions
Can I use these templates in Notion or Google Docs?
Yes. They're written in Markdown, so apps that understand Markdown, like Notion, turn the headings and checkboxes into real formatting when you paste. Anywhere else they still read fine as plain text, and you can format the headings by hand.
What's the difference between meeting notes and meeting minutes?
Meeting notes are your own record and can be as loose as you like. Minutes are the shared record that goes to everyone, written in neutral language around decisions and owners. We have a separate guide and template for minutes.
Do I need a different template for every kind of meeting?
You don't have to, but it helps. A 1:1 is about follow-up, a client meeting about objections and next steps, a retro about what will change. One generic template gives all of those the same weight.
