Meeting notes mind map template

Open the Meeting Notes template

The Meeting Notes template is one of the 13 starters Canvasola ships with, filed under business in the gallery. It arrives as a root called Meeting with five branches: Attendees, Agenda, Decisions, Action Items and Open Questions. Agenda arrives with two children, Item 1 and Item 2, and Action Items arrives with one, Owner + Due date.

Those starter children are placeholders, and the rest of the template is deliberately empty. That is the right amount of structure for a meeting map: the five branches are the five things a meeting is for, and the empty branches are the parts people usually skip.

Open the template from the Templates button in the mind map toolbar, or from the command palette with Ctrl/Cmd+K and "Start from a template". The board meeting guide shows how the same template behaves when a meeting has minutes, an agenda and people who do not talk.

• Five branches, and only two of them arrive with children
• The empty branches are the ones worth filling in
• Attendees first, so names are not reconstructed later
• One map per meeting, not one map for the whole year

Note: Choosing a template replaces the open map, so keep a running agenda for the quarter in a separate workspace tab.

Name the meeting and the date

The root label arrives as the single word Meeting, which is no use to anybody reading the map three weeks later. Select the root and press Enter or F2, then write the meeting and the date: "Product sync, 14 March". A label holds up to 8,000 characters, so a long recurring title still fits.

The date is the part people skip, and it is the part that makes the map findable. When you open it later, the date tells you which version of the plan was discussed. The shortcut cheat sheet has the keys for renaming a node and moving between branches.

Put the recurring slot in the label too, such as "Weekly product sync, 14 March", so a stack of maps for the same meeting sorts into a series. If the meeting is a one-off, name the project instead: "Kickoff, billing rewrite, 14 March".

• Meeting name plus date, in that order
• The date is what makes the map findable later
• Repeat the slot so a series of maps sorts together
• Name the project when the meeting is a one-off

One branch per discussion

The Agenda branch arrives with Item 1 and Item 2, which is a shape rather than content. Rename Item 1 with Enter or F2, then press Shift+Enter to add a sibling item beside the node you are on. That shortcut is what makes a live agenda quick, because you never move the cursor back to the branch.

One branch per discussion keeps the map readable. If an item will take forty minutes, it deserves a child of its own with the sub-points underneath, while the other items get a line each. A map where every item has three children says nothing about where the time went.

Number the items in the label, "1. Pricing", "2. Support load", because the order of the branches is the order of the discussion and the numbers make that visible when the map is read as slides.

1. Rename the placeholders. Select Item 1 and press Enter or F2, type the first real agenda item, and keep the second placeholder until you need it.
2. Add siblings quickly. Shift+Enter adds a sibling item beside the current node, so the agenda grows without moving the cursor.
3. Split the long one. Give the item that needs forty minutes a child of its own and hang the sub-points underneath it.

Capture the decision, not the chatter

The Decisions branch is the one that matters a week later, and it is usually the emptiest. Put one child node per decision, with the decision itself in the label: "Ship the 40 percent plan to 10 percent of accounts" rather than "discussed pricing". A decision that fits in a sentence can be quoted in the recap and acted on without asking anybody.

A discussion that did not end in a decision belongs under Open Questions, and so does anything that needed a fact nobody in the room had. Move it out of the Agenda item rather than leaving it there, because an agenda item with a question in it reads like an agreement that was reached.

The chatter itself does not need a home. If a remark matters later, put it in the rich note on the decision it relates to, with the name of who said it, so the context survives without the meeting being transcribed.

• One child per decision, phrased as the choice that was made
• Unfinished business goes to Open Questions
• Context that matters goes in the note, not in a transcript
• A decision you cannot quote is not written down yet

Write owners and due dates

The Action Items branch arrives with a child called Owner + Due date, and that placeholder is really a format. Replace it with one child per action, and let each label carry both parts: "Send the revised quote to Dana, Friday". A label holds up to 8,000 characters, so there is no excuse for leaving the date out.

One person per action, never a team. "Priya to send the revised quote by Friday" can be checked next week, while "sales to follow up" cannot be checked by anybody. When two people share the work, write the one who does it and name the other in the note.

Give anything with no date a node of its own, because an action with no date is a wish. A map shows overdue work better than a list does: the branch called "Waiting on legal, no date" tells the next meeting what to chase without anybody having to remember it.

• Owner and date in the label of every action
• One named person per action, never a team
• Actions with no date get a branch of their own
• A date in the past is an item for the next meeting

Send the map as the recap

The recap is the export. Choose Export mind map Markdown and the whole meeting comes out as a nested bullet list: the root, the branches, the decisions and the actions, in the order the branches were built. That drops straight into a message, and it is the version most people can read.

The same map also exports as a plain-text outline, as OPML 2.0 for other tools, and as PNG or SVG when the recap has to be a picture in a deck. The Markdown export guide shows what the file contains and how to bring it back in later.

Send it yourself, because Canvasola does not host the map online. Paste the Markdown into the message you send to the attendees and keep the .canv project file for yourself, so the next meeting starts from an updated version. The retrospective guide shows how a meeting map becomes the input for the next session.

• Markdown for the recap, PNG or SVG for a deck
• Plain-text outline when the reader is not technical
• OPML 2.0 keeps the structure for other mind map tools
• Save the project file before you send anything

Note: Canvasola cannot send the recap for you, and there is no live editing, so the export is the whole delivery step. Agree who writes the recap before the meeting starts.

A checklist you can reuse

• The root label carries the meeting name and the date
• Every agenda item is a real discussion rather than a placeholder
• Each decision is written as a sentence somebody could quote
• Questions that were not answered sit under Open Questions
• Every action has one named owner and a date
• The map was exported as Markdown for the recap
• The project file was saved before the recap was sent

Common mistakes to avoid

• Recording every sentence. A meeting map is not a transcript. Capture the decision, the owner and the date, and let the conversation itself fall away.
• Leaving the placeholders. Item 1 and Item 2 still sitting in the map after the meeting means the agenda was never renamed. Rename them before the meeting starts.
• Actions with no date. An action nobody can check is a wish. Give every one a date, even a rough one, so the next meeting can see what slipped.
• One branch for the whole meeting. A single branch of notes is hard to read and impossible to present. One branch per discussion keeps each part short.
• Sending a file only Canvasola opens. The map is not hosted anywhere, so a file only your app can open is a file most people cannot read. Export Markdown and paste it into the message.

Frequently asked questions

Should the Meeting Notes template be used for every meeting?

Use it for meetings that produce decisions and actions, which is most working meetings. A stand-up that lasts ten minutes is better served by three lines, and a workshop usually works better as a board of cards than as a tree of branches.

How do I add agenda items quickly during a meeting?

Select the item you are on and press Shift+Enter to add a sibling beside it, then type the next subject. The branch you are in stays the same, so the agenda grows in place while the meeting runs and you never have to go back to the parent node.

What is the difference between Decisions and Open Questions?

A decision is something the group agreed and will act on, so it needs a sentence and often a name next to it. An open question is a subject the meeting touched without settling, and it belongs in the Open Questions branch so nobody mistakes it for an agreement.

How do I share the notes with the attendees?

Export the map as Markdown and paste it into the message you send them, or use the plain-text outline for people who do not read bullet structures. Canvasola does not host the map online and has no live editing, so you are the one sending the file and the one updating it afterwards.

This guide is part of the template guides collection. For the wider product tour, read the complete Canvasola guide, and keep the keyboard shortcut cheat sheet open while you work.