A recap is the difference between a meeting that changes something and one everybody has forgotten by Friday. The goal is not to transcribe the meeting. It is to capture what was decided and who does what next.
The four parts of a useful recap
- Decisions: what was agreed, one line each.
- Action items: each with an owner and a due date.
- Open questions: anything unresolved, and who will resolve it.
- Context (optional): a sentence for people who were not in the room.
Turn messy notes into that shape
Raw notes are usually a wall of half-sentences. Read them once and tag each line as a decision, an action, a question, or noise. Throw away the noise. Everything that is left slots into the four buckets above.
Example
Decisions
- Launching the pricing page on 20 June
- Dropping the free tier for now
Action items
- Dave: finalise the copy by 14 June
- Priya: set up the payment products by 16 June
Open questions
- Does legal need to review the refund wording? (Priya to check)
Common mistakes
- A wall of text. If it is longer than the meeting felt, no one reads it.
- Actions with no owner. “We should...” is not an action. “Dave will, by Friday” is.
- Sending it late. A recap a week later is archaeology. Send it the same day.