Writing minutes as decisions, action items and carried-over issues

Saegyeo guide · October 9, 2026

Why split them

Minutes written in the order things were said are hard to scan for what was settled, especially when you meet the same people for months. A meeting leaves three things behind: what was settled (decisions), who does what by when (action items), and what was left open (issues).

Decisions: what was settled, and what it rests on

A decision deserves more than one line. Write down with it:

Conditions · the premise it depends on, such as “if the quote goes out by Wednesday”
Kind of evidence · data, cost or rules, or experience and opinion
Objections · who raised what concern, and whether it was resolved
Reversals · if it overturns an earlier decision, which one it replaces

“We’ll look into it” and “let me check upstairs” are not decisions. Write them as open issues or action items so they come back at the next meeting.

Action items: an owner and a deadline

Treat an action item as actionable only when it has both an owner and a deadline. Flag the ones without a deadline, such as “confirm the budget range”, and it becomes easy to ask for one during the meeting.

Write the owner and deadline only when someone actually said them. If the note-taker fills them in by guesswork, the other side ends up with promises they never agreed to.

Carried-over issues: how often, and for how long

For an item left open, record the day it first came up and how many times it was pushed back. A note like “Budget range · pushed back twice · day 23” shows at a glance that the same issue keeps returning. It is the first list to read when setting the next agenda.

Before the next meeting: what happened to last time’s commitments

Before meeting the same people again, sort each action item from last time by what the next meeting said about it:

Done · someone said so directly, like “I sent the price list yesterday”
Not done · someone said so directly, like “I haven’t sent the quote yet”
Not mentioned · nothing was said about it

Judging only from what was said, never from circumstances, keeps the judgement itself from becoming an argument.

What Saegyeo does for you

Saegyeo takes a meeting recording, writes the minutes in this format and quotes the supporting utterance on every line. Code drops lines whose quote is not in the transcript, and before you meet the same people again it sends you their outstanding commitments and previous issues. It keeps per-meeting numbers such as decision rate, action-item completeness and carried-over issues, but never scores people.