When given the task of taking minutes, it may seem like a simple concept; write down what everyone says and then email it to them afterwards. It is however, a little more complex and taking minutes which do not fulfil their purpose can have serious consequences. Minutes are used for several reasons. It may be that people are required to undertake certain actions as a result of a meeting. These should be noted for future reference. It may be that some key issues were resolved or important points made that will be referred back to in the future.

Minute taking can have several pitfalls. If everyone is talking at once, you may be distracted or unsure of the main points. A good minute taker will not attempt to write down everything for use in the minutes. Minutes should not be thought of as a written script of the meeting and someone could easily become overwhelmed and miss vital points if this is their approach to minute taking. Short hand should also be avoided unless you are very aware of what the short hand means. Feel free to decide in advance, but do not start a short hand in the meeting that you will not understand later on. Similarly, you should be careful not to send out minutes that are full of jargon to parties that will not understand the jargon. Always tailor the minutes to the people who need to view and understand them.

If there was one thing I would say is the most important piece of preparation any minute taker can undertake it would be to get a copy of the agenda in advance. This will give you an idea before you start of the topic, the order and the meeting details. One section per topic would give you a structure for the minutes and allow you to get an idea of what you are writing about.

Included on the agenda is normally a list of attendees and general information such as the location and date. Take this information in with you. Decide in advance on an abbreviation for each attendee, for example their initials. On the minutes, be sure to write this abbreviation next to each person. This will mean less note taking for you and less unnecessary wording for the reader. Include the meeting summary information on the minutes so readers can clearly identify the meeting you are referring to.

When attempting to minute take during the meeting, do not attempt to write down everything that everyone says. Minutes are more of a summary for the main information and it is your job to decide on what is important and what is unhelpful and will not need to be referred back to later. One important element should be the actions. Whenever it is decided that a person will do something at some point in the future, take a note of what the action is, who will do it and the date it will be done by, if applicable. Other vital things to note are any summary points on any topic discussed. Add the topic discussed and any decision reached rather than detailed information on how the decision was reached.

Do not be surprised if a meeting is begun by going through the minutes for the last meeting to see what has been accomplished. It may be that new or on-going actions will result. Since they may be discussed, it is worth getting a copy of them so that you know what is likely to be discussed in this meeting. It will also show you how the minutes are usually done.

When summarising, avoid adding your own personal opinions to any action or point. If an action is made for a colleague to perform a task for example, do not add that you disagree with this choice. The decision has been made and minutes are not a forum for you to pass judgement on the meeting at a later date.

If you have trouble creating a structure for the minutes then consider using a template. This can be a Microsoft Word template or one from the internet. If minutes are taken regularly then it may be that the company already have a template to use. If you cannot find the blank template then you could take a copy of some old minutes and delete the text. Do not spend a long time designing high-tech and elaborate templates since it is not a presentation document and readers will not be interested.

The key to minute taking is to make things as easy as possible for you, the minute taker. You are there to summarise and note the main points, collate everything into a clear and user friendly format and to send it to all relevant parties. Be sure to sit where you can hear everyone speak. If you a worried about missing points then tape record the meeting so you can refer back to it later. One last and simple point - do not forget to spell check!