How to take notes in one-on-one meetings

A 1:1 meeting notes template

Keep one running document per person, with the newest meeting at the top. Each meeting gets a dated entry with the same five headings. Both people add topics before the meeting, and both can read it. Here's the template:

• Date.
• Their topics: what the report wants to talk about. These go first.
• Manager's topics: updates, questions, feedback.
• Decisions and agreements: anything you both agreed, in one line each.
• Follow-ups: who does what by when, for both of you.
• For next time: things that came up late or need more thought.

That's enough. The rest of this post covers why a running note works, how to fill it in, what to leave out, and how to use it when review season comes round.

Why one running note per person

A one-on-one is a series, not a single meeting. The value builds up: a concern raised in March, a goal set in April, a follow-up that slipped in May. If each meeting lives in a separate file, or in your head, that thread is lost.

GitLab's public handbook describes a similar setup. It recommends a consistent agenda format for every 1:1, a shared doc as the agenda with access limited to the manager and the team member, and both parties adding items. It also suggests the report adds most of them: if the manager puts more than half of the items on the agenda, that's a sign something is wrong (GitLab Handbook). The handbook credits the idea that a 1:1 is the report's meeting to Andy Grove's book High Output Management.

How to fill it in

Before the meeting

Both people add topics to the next entry during the week, as things come up. GitLab suggests keeping the doc open and filling in the agenda at least 24 hours in advance, so both sides have time to think (GitLab Handbook). Glance at last time's follow-ups too, so you can start by closing them out.

During the meeting

Take light notes. A 1:1 is a conversation, and a manager typing through it sends the wrong message. Write down decisions, follow-ups and anything you'd struggle to remember exactly, such as a specific goal or a date. Leave the rest for after.

Straight after

Spend two minutes tidying the entry while it's fresh. Turn rough jottings into one-line decisions and follow-ups with owners and dates. If you agreed something important, it's worth saying in the doc so the other person can see and correct it.

A filled-in example

The names and details are illustrations.

• Date: 7 October.
• Their topics: Wants more client-facing work. Unsure about priorities between the audit and the new onboarding guide.
• Manager's topics: Feedback on last week's client presentation. Team offsite dates.
• Decisions: Onboarding guide comes first; the audit moves to November.
• Follow-ups: Ana to draft the guide outline by the 14th. Manager to ask about Ana joining the next client kickoff, by Friday.
• For next time: Talk about a training budget for presentation skills.

Notice what each line does. It records what was agreed, not a transcript of the conversation.

What not to write down

A 1:1 note is a work record, and it may be read by more people than you expect. Under UK data protection law, for example, a worker can ask their employer for a copy of their personal information, and the UK regulator's guidance for employers gives the example of a request for the notes from a worker's last appraisal. Employers must respond without delay and within one month of receipt of the request (ICO). Rules differ by country, so check your own employer's policy, but a good default is to write every note as if the person it's about could read it.

In practice, leave out:

• Health details, family matters and other personal information someone shares in confidence, unless they ask you to record something and your HR policy says how.
• Opinions about other colleagues. Note the work issue, not the judgement of the person.
• Guesses about motives. "Seemed disengaged" is a guess. "Said they want more client work" is a fact.
• Anything you'd be uncomfortable reading aloud to them.

How to look back before a review

This is where the running note pays off. It's easy to judge a whole review period by the last few weeks, because that's what you remember most clearly. Your 1:1 notes cover the whole period.

1. 1Read every entry since the last review, oldest first.
2. 2Pull out goals that were set, and check what happened to each one.
3. 3List decisions and follow-ups, and mark which were done.
4. 4Collect specific examples of good work and of problems, with dates.
5. 5Note anything raised more than once. Repeated topics are often the real story.

If you're the report, do the same from your side. Your notes are evidence of what you asked for, what you were told and what you delivered.

Making old 1:1s easy to search

Use the same names for projects and people in every entry, and keep the headings identical, so a search finds everything. For tips on naming and searching meeting notes, see how to find what was said in a meeting or customer call.

If you keep 1:1 notes in Lumyo, each note gets a summary and a category automatically, and before a review you can choose one person's notes and ask "what goals did we set this year, and what happened to them?" The answer cites the notes it used, and tapping a source opens the exact line. If something was never written down, it says it doesn't know rather than filling the gap.