Notes for the people in the room, and everyone who wasn't
Most meeting notes fail the one-week test: someone opens them later and cannot tell what was decided. This template splits the purpose, the decisions, and the next steps into their own sections, so anyone can skim for what matters.
Use it for project check-ins, client calls, planning sessions, or team reviews. Delete any section a meeting does not need. A short note that gets finished beats a perfect form that doesn't.
Copy or download the template
It is plain Markdown, free, with no account or email required. Open the .md file in Beauty or any Markdown editor, or paste it into a note you already have. Switch to the filled-in example to see how specific a good decision or action item looks (the people are made up).
# Meeting: [topic] **Date:** YYYY-MM-DD **Participants:** [names] **Purpose:** [the question we need to answer] ## Agenda 1. [First topic] 2. [Second topic] ## Notes - [Relevant context, evidence, or constraints] ## Decisions - **Decision:** [what we agreed] - **Reason:** [why] ## Action items | Action | Owner | Due | | --- | --- | --- | | [Specific next step] | [One person] | [Date] | ## Open questions - [Question, and who will find the answer] ## Next check-in [Date or condition for meeting again]
Before the meeting: write down the question
Fill in the purpose before anyone joins. "Discuss the guide" is a topic. "Decide what a new user needs before writing their first note" is a question the meeting can actually answer.
Add a short agenda and anything people should read beforehand, with links. Keep it brief; the note is there to help the meeting reach a decision, not to be a second slide deck.
During the meeting: keep notes and decisions apart
Put context, evidence, and constraints under Notes. Put what was agreed under Decisions, with a one-line reason. A week later, that split is what tells you whether an idea was just floated or actually chosen.
Write every action item as a concrete next step with one owner and a due date. "Improve the docs" is a wish. "Draft the sample note, Ada, Wednesday" is a task.
The action items use standard Markdown table syntax. In Beauty you can add rows and rearrange the table visually as follow-ups change.
After the meeting: clean it up and send it
Spend two minutes deleting fragments that no longer make sense and double-checking that each decision is recorded correctly. List open questions explicitly so nobody mistakes "we're not sure" for "we agreed."
Send the Markdown if colleagues will edit it, or export a PDF for a finished summary. Better yet, share a live Beauty session during the meeting and write the notes together.
At the end of the week, pull unfinished actions into your weekly review so they do not get lost.