More and more jobs in big corporations involve the capacity to resume; to condensate information in a clear way so that the meaning doesn’t get lost, but less time is waste reading it. This is why a good assistant is indispensable to any sort of business. One of the most important jobs that an assistant has to do is to take meeting minutes. Making a short resume of everything that has been talked about, and all the decisions that have been made in a meeting is a very hard and I believe also a tremendously important job for the smooth running of a business. So, how to write meeting minutes? Well, as I said, it is no easy task. You have to have divided attention, so you don’t miss anything; also you need to be able to have a great capacity to filter irrelevant information from important one; and not least of all, you need to be very organized so you don’t get lost in your notes. All and all, it isn’t a job that anyone can do, but I believe there are some tricks to it, and that is why I have decided to write down what I find to be the most important steps you need to take in order to write flawless meeting minutes:

1.    Be succinct. Probably the first thing you need to get a grip on when learning how to write meeting minutes. Don’t say more than you have to. Eliminate anything that isn’t absolutely essential, and most of all be careful not to repeat yourself. Of course you need to find a balance between not writing to much and still making the information very easy to understand. Sometimes you may be tented to be to succinct because you know what you want to say, but you leave to little information for anyone else to figure out what it is you meant.

2.    Focus on the important topics. Always keep track of the topics the meeting was scheduled for. It is easy to get lost in details, so you should always have a page or a paragraph where you have all the important topics written down, so that you can always make connections to what is discussed in the meeting.

3.    Write the main ideas of what is discussed. In addition to keeping track of the important topics you also need to make sure that you don’t miss any main idea of the meeting, even if it is not related to the topics. Being able to deduce which of the ideas and solutions proposed are important and which are irrelevant is another important part of learning how to write meeting minutes.

4.    Be organized. From my perspective this is the most important quality that an assistant should have. You need to make sure that you understand the topics that are discussed so you can make connections between the ideas that are discussed. If you just write down what everyone is saying you will get nowhere. After you write down the topics and the most important ideas on separate parts of the paper make sure that anything that refers to either of them is in close proximity. Also, use different colors, so you can make a much faster distinction between what is important and what isn’t.     

5.    Abbreviate. Always abbreviate while taking notes in the meeting otherwise you will never be able to keep up. It is very important that you choose your abbreviations beforehand, so you don’t use the same one for different words, and get lost in what you wanted to say. Using abbreviations to your advantage is one of the first things you should keep track off when you are learning how to write meeting minutes.

6.    Focus on the decisions made. The most important things that come out of any meeting are the decisions made. So this is the factor on which you need to structure your meeting minutes. Keep them in mind when you write the final draft of the meeting minutes, and you will have a much easier job.

7.    Check your facts with the people present at the meeting. After you have finished writing the final draft of the meeting minutes make sure you always check your facts. This is a very important step, because there may have been terms you weren’t familiarized with in the meeting, which you may have misunderstood.

Learning how to write meeting minutes is no easy task, and I believe that only a great assistant can do it properly. At the same time, I believe that a great assistant is only someone who is looking to become more in their career. So you shouldn’t get to hung up on a great assistant, because if he or she is that good, in an year or two they will be gone or promoted to a better job.     

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