How to Create Meeting Notes in Google Docs

One of the things I love about software training is that I learn new things all the time. I’m not so arrogant that I think I know everything. I keep an open mind and I’m always happy to learn. This is one of those tips I learned recently.

I have a client who uses Google Workspace every day. Like many of us, she has lots of meetings and appointments. Also, like many of us, she needs to keep details notes about those meetings. Now, we all have our methods, which can be anything from notes on our phone to a notepad on the desk. But, let’s face it, keeping all those notes in one place is always better. That’s where the tip she shared with me comes in.

If you use Google Docs, you may be familiar with the Meeting Notes template. It’s in the template gallery. But we’re not going to be using that today. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a handy template to use, but Google has another little trick that I want to explore.

I’ll start with a new, blank document, and as soon as I do that, I can see 3 options at the top of the page that will help me to create meeting notes, an email draft, and the mysterious “more” link.

The key reason for using the Meeting notes option is that it connects to my Google Calendar. Hovering my mouse over the link shows a quick outline of the typical items you would want in your meeting notes, but the cool part happens when I click the button.

The meetings I have in my calendar are displayed in a drop down list. Because I have a meeting scheduled with Matt, I’ll click on it to add the details to this page. Did you just have a “Love it, stealing it” moment?

Anyway, let’s check out the steps.

Preparing the Note Document

Before I start adding meeting notes, I want to set up my document so I can add notes for the meetings with team members. Doing this keeps the notes separated, even though they’re stored in a single document.

1. Start with a new document. This will have a single tab on the left.
2. Click the 3 dot icon on Tab 1, then click Rename and type a name for the tab.
3. Add more tabs by clicking on the Plus + icon at the top.
4. Rename each tab as you create it. In my example, I added a tab for each team member.

Adding Meeting Notes

1. Click the document tab where you want the notes to be added.
2. Click the Meeting notes link at the top of the page.
3. From the drop down list, select the meeting you want to add.

A Meeting note is added to the page, including a notes section, action items and details of the date.

If I want to add the meeting notes into the calendar, I can click on the attach icon at the bottom right of the drop down.

To email the meeting notes to a team member, I click on the email icon to the left of the note.

As I have more meetings with Matt, and my other team members, I can simply add the new notes to their page. Clicking Insert > Building Blocks > Meeting Notes will do that.

So far, this is pretty good, but the part that I really like is that this page of meeting notes is separate from the rest of the document.

If I click on the other tabs, I can see that the meeting notes are specific to each tab. Now I can go straight to the notes for that team member.

Ok folks, I reckon that’s it for this post. I encourage you to explore the Meeting notes options to see if they’re something you might like to use. Also, if you’re curious to know more about the document tabs, check out our article here: Using document tabs in Google Docs.