Meeting Minutes Template Generator

How Do You Take Notes?

Fact: Everyone has different styles and preferences for running meetings and taking notes. This is true even within the Less Meeting team.

Some take notes electronically, some go old school with pen & paper, and there are many of us who use some combo in between. My preference is to take notes on printouts or in a notebook with one of my favorite pens. Despite my terrible handwriting, I enjoy the process of physically writing something down and I enjoy drawing pictures/visuals.

Paper Based Inspiration

I am a huge fan of David Seah's "The Printable CEO" collection. You should take a look at The Printable CEO Series. David focuses on simple, efficient ways, to use well designed templates to help increase your productivity on a daily basis.

David's "Printable CEO" templates were the source of inspiration for a new feature of LessMeeting: Meeting Minutes Template generator. This printable format for taking meeting minutes will help you organize your notes and even better, is free. As in 100% free, no account needed.

For the meeting minute template generator, we had two primary goals:

• Make it usable - As with everything we do in LessMeeting, we have tried to make this template usable. We focused on the meeting best practices of having an agenda, action items, and space for recording key points and decisions.
• Make it pretty - Everyone likes to have printouts that make them look impressive when you show up for a meeting.

The Meeting Notes Template:

You can access the Meeting Minutes Template generator at:
http://www.lessmeeting.com/resources/meeting-template.
 
To use the meting template generator follow these three simple steps:

1. Go to the Meeting Minutes Template Generator and enter your meeting information.
2. Click on the create template button and print out the PDF meeting minute template that is automatically generated.
3. Use your favorite pen to record your meeting notes on your printable meeting minutes.

Here's the Meeting Minutes Template in Action:

Want more than just a basic paper solution? Want to really stand out among your coworkers as someone who has their meetings in order?
Learn more about Less Meeting here - the first 30 days are free!

Do you like meetings as much as we do?

LessMeeting is participating in the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) / Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Business Launch competition. The purpose of the Business Launch is to support economic development in Georgia by encouraging and supporting the creation and growth of new companies that will strengthen and expand Georgia’s strategic high tech clusters. We are competing for a $50k cash prize along with a suite of professional services estimated to be worth an additional $200k to the winner.



As part of the competition Blake and I decided to put our pride to the side and created a satirical infomercial for the People’s Choice award. The People’s Choice winners automatically win a place in the semi-final round of the Business Launch.

Support LessMeeting’s fight against bad meetings and vote for our video (video #6) so our fight is not in shame vain.

Vote Here: LessMeeting’s People’s Choice Video #6

The 22 Minute Meeting

Have you heard of the 22 Minute Meeting? I recently saw an Ignite presentation by Nicole Steinbok that is dead on with what we’re trying to do here at LessMeeting. Instead of just regurgitating what Nicole said, check out her presentation for yourself below. And since it’s an Ignite presentation, it only takes 5 minutes (and Nicole uses those 5 minutes well!) so you have no excuse not to.



There’s even this great meeting guide Nicole has created that you can download.

What excites me the most is that without realizing it Nicole has highlighted some of the best features of LessMeeting. Let’s take a closer look:

• Schedule a 22 minute meeting – We also hate meetings that are always 30 or 60 minutes. That’s why we allow you to use your Agenda to drive the length of the meeting.
• Have a goal based agenda – Right in Outlook write out clear goals that will drive your agenda. Then after the meeting, measure up to see which goals you achieved.

• Start on Time – Use the meeting timer to start your meeting clock. Then dive into your meeting analytics to see which meetings start late, run late, and are wasting your time.
• No laptops, but presenters and note takers – While at LessMeeting we think everyone can be a note taker, the important thing is that we provide the note taker, whoever it is, with the right tools for them to take great notes during the meeting.
• Focus! Note off topic comments – This is what the parking lot is for…use it!
• Send notes and action items ASAP – One of my favorite features, when the meeting is over click the End Meeting button and meeting minutes and action items collected during the meeting are all automatically emailed to everyone. Done!

What about you? Do you agree with Nicole? Is there anything you’d add to her poster?

Meetings are 'The Suck'

Seriously, aren’t they? Stop and take a moment to think about the last meeting that you walked out of feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, relaxed……still thinking? Yet they’re a part of our culture so like it or not you can’t just go cold turkey and quit meetings altogether. This is why we’re here. (photo via Ariel)
LessMeeting was born out of a collaboration of two things. One, as long-time consultants we’ve all sat through many a poorly run meeting. Agendas? Who needs those? Invitees? Let’s invite the whole company so no one feels left out. Action Items? Ehhh, I already have enough work to do. We’ve suffered enough. So if anything, we can at least make our own lives better (ps you’re welcome to join too).

Two, following up on the fantastic work that one of the LessMeeting founders, Blake, did over at CrowdMind (have you checked that out yet?), we had learned a ton of valuable lessons about running a startup so that LessMeeting could start off ahead of the curve.

As we set out, we have two really simple goals. First, we want fewer meetings. Let us spend our day doing real work. As Jason Fried (you know, that 37signals guy) points out, meetings are just interruptions that prevent us from getting real work done. Second, we want better meetings. Ok, we get that meetings are a necessary evil. But let’s stop blatantly wasting time and get some value out of meetings.

So, welcome to LessMeeting. We already have a beta release available for our Outlook users and will be taking care of the rest of you soon! The next time you’re stuck in a meeting that won’t end and need a distraction, stop by and take a look.

Startup Atlanta #Onstage: Jeff Steinke of LessMeeting

LessMeeting's Jeff Steinke at Startup Atlanta.



Source: Friendly Human Productions