The meeting that happened but wasn't documented didn't happen, as far as anyone's decision-making process is concerned. The commitment made verbally in a conference room, the action item assigned but not written down, the decision reached by consensus that nobody captured — all of these exist only in the memories of the people present, degrading at different rates, interpreted slightly differently by each person in the room. The meeting log is the shared memory that doesn't degrade.
Agenda as the Pre-Meeting Record
Agenda is the field that forces meeting clarity before the meeting starts. An agenda captured in the record before the meeting is the commitment to what the meeting is for. It's also the benchmark against which the Topic and Notes entries are measured — if the meeting covered the agenda items and produced clear Notes, it was productive. If the notes don't connect to the agenda items, either the agenda was wrong or the meeting drifted.
Topic with Notes creates the per-topic record during the meeting. Writing notes by topic rather than chronologically produces a meeting record that's usable later — you can navigate to the discussion on budget approval without reading through everything that came before it.
Attendance is the accountability record. Decisions made in meetings are only binding on people who were present or were informed of the outcome. An attendance list that's accurate means you know who needs to be briefed on outcomes and who has been party to commitments made.
The Multi-Format Evidence Layer
Audio Recording is the field that changes the nature of the notes entirely. When an audio recording of the meeting is attached to the record, the notes shift from being the authoritative record to being the navigable index. A question about exactly what was said about the Q3 budget projection can be answered by checking the audio rather than relying on the notes interpretation. The recording doesn't replace the notes — it validates them and fills in the gaps.
Handouts closes the documentation loop. A meeting about a contract that references a specific document but doesn't attach it leaves the record incomplete. The handout file attached to the meeting record means the document that was being discussed when the decision was made is part of the decision record.
Date, Location, and Title with Notes are the search anchors. Finding the meeting where the vendor selection was made three months ago requires a searchable record — title or date or both. Without structured fields, the search is a scroll through a chronological list hoping to identify the right entry.