Action items in meetings: meaning, examples and template
What an action item is, how it differs from a decision, how to write one that gets done, with examples and a free Word minutes template.
What are action items?
An action item is a task agreed in a meeting: what will be done, who will do it and by when. The three parts are what make it an action rather than a remark. "We should look at the pricing" is a remark. "RK sends the revised price list to Halden Foods by Friday 6 November" is an action item.
In the UK they are often called action points, or simply actions, and in a set of meeting minutes they usually sit either under the item that produced them or in a list at the end. Either way they are the part of the minutes people actually use. Nobody rereads the discussion; everybody checks whether their action is still open.
The term is useful because it names a real distinction. A meeting can produce an hour of talk and no actions, and the list at the end is how you tell whether it was worth holding.
How is an action item different from a decision?
A decision is what the meeting settled. An action is what somebody does because of it. The two are easy to blur in the moment, and minutes that blur them leave everyone unsure whether anything was agreed.
Suppose a project meeting agrees to move a product launch from December to 12 January. That is the decision, and it needs no owner: it is now true. The actions that follow do. Someone tells the agency about the new date, and someone checks the January trade show still fits. Each of those has a name and a deadline.
Notes are the third thing. They record what was said on the way to the decision: the figure that was quoted, the option that was ruled out and why. They matter later, when someone asks why the launch moved, but they are neither decisions nor actions and should not be written as if they were. Our minutes guide covers what else belongs in the record.
How do you write an action item?
Start with the deliverable, not the topic. "Pricing" is a topic. "Send the revised price list to Halden Foods" is something that can be done and seen to be done. If you can't picture the finished thing, the action isn't written yet.
Give it one owner. A person, not a team, and one person rather than two. "Marketing to update the plan" means nobody has been asked. If two people both need to act, write two actions.
Give it a date. A real one. "ASAP" and "before the next meeting" both mean the day before the next meeting, if then. If the owner can't commit to a date in the room, the action isn't ready and the meeting should say so.
Write it in the meeting and read it back. The moment to write an action is when it is agreed, in the words the owner used. Read it aloud before the meeting moves on: "So that's RK, revised price list to Halden by the 6th?" Ten seconds then saves a round of emails later, and the owner has heard themselves agree to it.
Keep the number down. A meeting that produces twenty actions has usually produced two decisions and eighteen things people were already going to do. Record the ones somebody would otherwise forget or dispute.
Launch moves from 8 December to 12 January.
No further spend on the December campaign.
Pricing — teamwho?
RK — send the revised price list to Halden Foods — Fri 6 NovFollow up with legalby when?
JM — send the revised contract to legal for review — Fri 6 NovEveryone review the planwhich plan? by when?
all — send PA comments on the launch plan — Tue 10 NovPA circulates the final version — 12 Nov
Supplier issue — DSwhat exactly?
DS — get a written delivery commitment from the supplier — Thu 12 NovSome before-and-after examples:
- Vague: The team will look into the supplier issue. Written as an action: DS gets a written delivery commitment from the supplier by Thursday 12 November.
- Vague: Follow up with legal. Written as an action: JM sends the revised contract to legal for review by Friday 6 November.
- Vague: Everyone to review the plan. Written as an action: All attendees send PA their comments on the launch plan by Tuesday 10 November; PA circulates the final version on the 12th.
The last one shows the exception to one owner: when everyone has to do the same thing, name the group, give the date and make one person responsible for collecting the result.
Action items examples
Here is the end of a set of minutes from a team meeting, with the decisions separated from the actions.
Tue 3 Nov 2026, 10:00 to 10:45
- Launch moves from 8 December to 12 Januarydecision
- Halden Foods gets the revised price list, not a bespoke quotedecision
- No further spend on the December campaigndecision
- RK — tell the agency the launch is now 12 January and confirm the new timeline in writing — by 6 Novemberowner + date
- RK — send the revised price list to Halden Foods — by 6 Novemberowner + date
- JM — update the project plan and share it with the team — by 10 Novemberowner + date
- DS — get a written delivery commitment from the supplier — by 12 Novemberowner + date
- PA — check the January trade show dates still work with the new launch — by 20 Novemberowner + date
Tue 17 Nov 2026, 10:00. Open actions first.
Each action can be checked on its date without asking anyone what was meant. Two of them belong to the same person, which is fine; two people sharing one would not be.
How do you track action items between meetings?
Put them in the minutes under their own heading, so anyone can find them without reading the discussion, and send the minutes the same day. An action that arrives a week later has already lost a week.
Open the next meeting with them. The next agenda should carry the open actions as its first item after the previous minutes, and each one gets a one-word status: done, in progress or carried over. Carry an action over once. If it comes back a second time, the owner or the date was wrong, and the meeting should decide again rather than let it roll.
Keep one list per meeting series. Actions from the project meeting live with the project minutes; actions from the board live with the board's. A single list across every meeting someone attends is a to-do list, and it belongs to that person, not to the record.
Where a team runs a task tracker, the minutes still hold the record. The tracker shows what is being done; the minutes show what was agreed and by whom, which is what settles it when the two differ.
Action items template
Our meeting minutes template keeps actions as one section, marked who · what · when, after the decisions. It is a single open area, so the list can be as long or short as the meeting needs. One Word file, free, with no sign-up, or copy it as text into your own document.
[date], [start and finish time]
[venue or video link] · Attendees: [names] · Apologies: [names]
[action from last time] — [done / in progress / carried over]
[topic] — [what was covered, with any figure quoted and what it refers to]
[what was decided, and who made the call if it matters]
[owner] — [task] — by [date]
[date, time]
Sorinai writes the notes during the meeting, actions included, and keeps the transcript, so an owner or a date can be checked against what was said rather than remembered. See how it takes notes during the meeting, and how it guards against made-up lines. The project, board and AGM minutes templates are on the templates page.
Action items FAQ
What is another word for action items?
Action points is the usual British term, and many minutes just say actions. Follow-ups and next steps are used informally. They all mean the same thing: a task from the meeting with an owner and a date.
What do open and outstanding action items mean?
An open action is one that hasn't been done yet. Outstanding usually means open and past its date. Closed or complete means done, and carried over means the meeting agreed to move the date rather than let it lapse.
Should action items go in the minutes or a separate tracker?
In the minutes always, because the minutes are the record of what was agreed. A tracker on top is useful for a long project with many actions, as long as the minutes stay the source and the tracker follows them.
Who should own an action item?
One named person who was in the meeting, or who has agreed to it since. An action assigned to someone absent is a request, not an action, until they have accepted it. When several people must do the same thing, give the group one date and make one person responsible for collecting the results.