Meeting prep and recap with Claude Cowork

TL;DR. Before a recurring meeting, pull together the brief — agenda, status updates, decisions needed, pre-reads. After, turn notes into a structured recap with actions and owners. 1–2 hours per recurring meeting per week saved. The single biggest lever is the running actions tracker, not the per-meeting recap.

Job to be done#

Before a recurring meeting, assemble the pre-read brief. After, produce a structured recap with decisions and actions, and append to a running actions tracker across meetings.

Who runs it#

Chief of Staff, EAs supporting executives, function heads running their own staff meetings.

Inputs (inbox/)#

• Standing agenda template
• Last meeting's notes
• Status updates from contributors in /inbox/updates-[date]/
• Optional: connector to calendar / Notion / Slack

Outputs (output/)#

• prep-[meeting]-[date].docx — pre-read brief
• recap-[meeting]-[date].docx — decisions and actions
• actions-tracker.xlsx — running list of open actions across meetings

Prompt seed#

For the [meeting] on [date]:
Read /inbox/last-meeting-notes.docx and everything in /inbox/updates-[date].
Produce /output/prep-[meeting]-[date].docx covering:
- Agenda (from /CLAUDE.md/agenda-template)
- Status one-paragraph per workstream
- Decisions needed (with the option set for each)
- Open actions from last meeting and their status

After the meeting, I will paste raw notes into /inbox/notes-[date].md.
Then produce /output/recap-[meeting]-[date].docx and append actions
to /output/actions-tracker.xlsx.

Quality bar#

• Status paragraphs neutral, not aspirational.
• Decisions framed as choices (option A / option B), not as narratives.
• Action owners explicit; due dates defaulted to next meeting if unstated.
• Common trip-up: Cowork inferring decisions from notes. Push back — only record decisions explicitly stated.

Time saved (typical)#

1–2 hours per recurring meeting per week.

Upgrade path#

• Connector to calendar or Notion to skip the manual collation.
• A meeting-prep skill keyed on a calendar event.

Tinkso's take#

The single biggest lever is the actions tracker. A meeting-by-meeting Word recap is fine; a running Excel of every action across meetings is what executives quietly love. After three months the tracker becomes the artifact people refer back to, and the recaps become disposable.