Turn meeting notes
into a reviewable action list.

STEP 01

Start with the notes you actually have.

For your own meeting, open the document where you took notes—such as Word, OneNote or Google Docs. Copy the meeting date, explicit decisions, tasks and any stated owners or deadlines. Don’t fill gaps from memory.

For this first run, use the fictional notes below. They deliberately contain missing information and one unagreed suggestion.

Meeting: Website refresh check-in
Date: 15 September 2026

Decision: Keep the current homepage headline.
Alex will send revised homepage copy by 18 September 2026.
Priya will check the signup form. No deadline was agreed.
We need someone to review the mobile layout before launch. No owner was assigned and no launch date was set.
Sam suggested adding customer quotes. No decision was made.
Decision: Hold a further review after the revised copy is ready.

STEP 02

Give ChatGPT a bounded job.

1. Open ChatGPT and start a new chat. Sign in if prompted.
2. Copy the complete prompt below. It already includes the fictional notes.
3. Paste it into the message box and send it.
4. Read the action table, decisions and open questions before requesting any formatting changes.

Using only the meeting notes below, produce:
1. An action table with columns: task, owner, deadline, source wording.
2. A separate list of confirmed decisions.
3. A list of open questions, including missing owners or dates and suggestions that were not agreed.

Write “not stated” for missing owners or deadlines. Do not turn suggestions into agreed tasks or decisions. Keep relative timing as written; do not invent calendar dates. Include each explicit task even if it has no owner. Do not add facts from outside these notes.

MEETING NOTES
Meeting: Website refresh check-in
Date: 15 September 2026

Decision: Keep the current homepage headline.
Alex will send revised homepage copy by 18 September 2026.
Priya will check the signup form. No deadline was agreed.
We need someone to review the mobile layout before launch. No owner was assigned and no launch date was set.
Sam suggested adding customer quotes. No decision was made.
Decision: Hold a further review after the revised copy is ready.

Using your own notes later? Replace everything after “MEETING NOTES” with the approved text you gathered in step 1.

STEP 03

This is the kind of result to expect.

The table below is an editorial worked example, not a captured ChatGPT response. Your wording may differ. The commitments and gaps should not.

STEP 04

Check the commitments, not just the formatting.

• Owners: Alex and Priya are the only named task owners. Sam must not be assigned a task.
• Dates: Only Alex’s task has a calendar deadline. “Before launch” must not become an invented date.
• Decisions: Adding customer quotes is still a suggestion.
• Coverage: The unassigned mobile review must remain visible.
• Evidence: Match each row to the source wording and correct any omissions or invented commitments.

After checking, copy the table into your meeting follow-up document. Ask the team to confirm missing owners and dates before treating it as a final plan.

What this can realistically save

It can reduce the work of sorting and formatting longer notes. This short example may be just as quick to organise manually. There is no measured time-saving claim here: compare your usual process with drafting plus checking over a few real meetings.

Where it falls short

AI cannot recover a decision your notes never captured, verify what people meant or confirm that someone accepted a task. Ambiguous or inaccurate notes still need human follow-up.

Tool privacy reference: OpenAI’s privacy controls. Tool interfaces and account features can change.