# How to write action items people actually finish > For freelancers and consultants who leave client calls on Google Meet or Microsoft Teams with a list of things to do: how to write each action item with a verb, an owner, a date and a definition of done, a table of weak and strong examples, how to pin down vague dates, how to handle the actions a client owes you, and how to follow up without nagging. Canonical: https://trackheros.com/blog/how-to-write-action-items/ Author: Sami Kanafani Updated: 2026-10-22 **In short:** Write every action item as one sentence with four parts: a verb that can be finished, one named owner, a real date, and what done means. 'Tom sends the staging credentials by Thursday 22 October, so Sam can deploy' beats 'look into staging'. TrackHeros lists the action items from Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls with the owner as heard and the spoken due date resolved to a date. An action item is a task someone agreed in a meeting to do by a date. Most go wrong at the moment they are written down: no owner, no date, or a verb like "look into" that can never be finished. This guide is for freelancers and consultants who come out of client calls on Google Meet or Microsoft Teams with things to do, and with things the client has promised them. It covers the four parts of a good action item, weak and strong examples, vague dates, client-owned items and following up. ## What makes a good action item? Four parts: a verb that can be finished, one owner, a real date, and what done means. Leave any one out and the item drifts. | Part | Question it answers | Weak | Strong | | ---------- | --------------------- | ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | | Verb | What exactly happens? | "Look into caching" | "Measure the cache hit rate on the product page" | | Owner | Who will do it? | "We", "the team", "dev" | "Tom" | | Date | By when? | "Soon", "next sprint" | "Thursday 22 October" | | Done means | How will we know? | Nothing | "…and post the number in the project channel" | Put together, it is one sentence: ```text [Owner] will [verb] [object] by [date], [what done means]. Tom will send staging credentials by Thursday 22 October, tested with one log-in, so Sam can deploy the webhook handler. ``` The fourth part is the one most templates leave out. "Review the designs" has an owner and a date and can still end in an argument, because one person meant a glance and the other expected written comments on every screen. "Review the designs and send written comments on the three checkout screens" cannot. The [client meeting minutes template](/blog/client-meeting-minutes-template/) uses the first three parts; this guide adds the fourth. ## Which verbs belong in an action item? Verbs with an end: send, decide, confirm, deploy, book, draft, approve, fix, measure, write. Avoid verbs that describe an activity with no finish line: look into, explore, think about, work on, follow up, check, discuss. A fog verb usually hides a real one. Ask what would have happened when the item is finished, and write that. | Fog verb | What it usually means | Rewrite | | -------------------- | ------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Look into refunds | Find out whether it is possible | Confirm whether the payment provider supports partial refunds, and reply in the thread | | Follow up with legal | Get an answer | Get a yes or no from legal on the data-processing clause | | Work on search | Make progress | Put the first version of search on staging | | Discuss pricing | Decide later | Put pricing on Monday's agenda with two options written up | | Check the migration | Find out if it is safe | Run the migration on a copy of production and report how long it takes | ## What do bad and good action items look like? The difference is rarely the task. It is what the item leaves for the reader to guess. Here are six things said in client calls, the item as it is usually written, and the item as it should be. | Heard in the call | Weak item | Strong item | What was missing | | ------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------- | | "Can someone sort out DNS before launch?" | Sort out DNS | Sam will point the domain at the new server by Friday 30 October and confirm the certificate works | Owner, date, done means | | "We should talk to legal about the cookie banner" | Legal re: cookies | Priya will ask legal whether the current banner covers analytics and share the answer by Wednesday 28 October | Owner, a verb with an end | | "I'll get you the copy some time next week" | Copy from client | Priya will send final copy for the pricing page by Friday 30 October; design starts when it arrives | A real date, the dependency | | "Let's keep an eye on errors after the release" | Monitor errors | Tom will check the error dashboard daily for a week after release and report the counts on Friday's call | Done means | | "Can you two sort out the API contract?" | API contract (Sam/Tom) | Sam will draft the API contract by Monday 2 November; Tom will review it by Wednesday 4 November | One owner per item | | "Dark mode would be nice at some point" | Dark mode | Not an action item. Note it as an idea, or as an open question for the backlog | Nobody agreed to do it | The last row matters as much as the others. Writing an idea up as an action item creates a commitment nobody made, and a list full of those stops being read. ## How do you turn vague dates into real ones? Resolve every spoken date into a calendar date before the minutes go out, and keep the spoken words wherever the date might be argued about. "End of next week" means one Friday when it is said on a Monday and another when the minutes are read the following Wednesday. | Said | Resolve to | Watch out for | | ------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | | "End of next week" | The last working day of the following week | A client whose working week ends on a Thursday | | "EOD" | A time and a timezone: "17:00 London" | End of whose day, when the client is five hours ahead | | "ASAP" | Nothing until you ask: "Is Wednesday all right?" | ASAP has no date; get one in the call | | "Early next month" | A specific day, agreed | "Early" stretches to the tenth | | "After the release" | The release, named, plus a number of days | Releases move; the item should move with the release it names | | "Before the demo" | The working day before the demo, with a time | Leaves no room to fix anything | | "Next sprint" | The last day of the next sprint, written as a date | Sprint boundaries the client may not know | The cheapest fix happens in the call. When someone says "next week", ask "Thursday?" It takes two seconds and nobody minds. ## What about action items the client owes you? Write them with the same four parts and add what they block. A client who is late with access, content or a decision is a common reason for a freelancer's own date to slip, and "waiting on client" with no date is no defence three weeks later. ```text Priya will send final pricing copy by Friday 30 October. Blocks: the pricing page build (Sam), which needs three working days after the copy arrives. ``` Put client-owned items in the minutes, under their own heading in the follow-up email, and at the top of the next meeting's agenda. Being specific is not pushy. It is what lets you say, calmly and with a date, that the launch moved because the copy did. ## How do you follow up on action items? Check them at the start of the next meeting, chase anything that blocks you before then, and close items rather than letting them age. - **Open every recurring call with last time's actions**, owner by owner. Two minutes, and it keeps the rest of the meeting honest. - **Chase a blocking item the day after its date**, in writing, with the date and the consequence: "The credentials were due yesterday. Without them the go-live moves by the same number of days. Can you send them today?" - **Close items that events have overtaken**, with a line saying why. A list that only grows stops being read. - **Keep one list per client.** A single list across clients is how one client's deadline ends up in another client's status email; [keeping client notes separate](/blog/keep-client-meeting-notes-separate/) covers why. The email that carries the actions, split into yours and theirs, is in [the follow-up email guide](/blog/follow-up-email-after-client-meeting/), and the rest of the minutes in [how to write meeting minutes](/blog/how-to-write-meeting-minutes/). ## How does TrackHeros handle action items? After a Google Meet or Microsoft Teams call, the TrackHeros summary lists the action items, each with a task, an owner and a due date. The owner is the name as it was heard. If that name did not match anyone recorded in the meeting, the item carries a "Not an attendee" chip so you verify it before acting on it. Due dates are kept as they were said, "end of next week", and resolved to a date. On the meeting page each item can be ticked done, edited (task, owner and due date) or deleted. The Action items page lists everything committed to across every client, each row labelled with its client, filtered by open or done and by owner, and items can be ticked done there too. The task, owner and date come from what was said; the "done means" part is still yours to add. More on [action items](/features/action-items/) and on [how the owner is chosen](/answers/who-owns-an-action-item/). ## Frequently asked **What is an action item in a meeting?** A specific task that someone agreed in the meeting to do by a certain date. It has one owner, a verb that can be finished and a due date. Anything without an owner is an open question, and anything without a verb is a topic. **Can an action item have two owners?** It can have helpers, but only one owner. Two owners means each assumes the other is doing it. Split the task into two items with a date each, or name one owner and mention the other person in the task. **What if the client owns the action item?** Write it exactly as you would your own, with their name and a date, and add what it blocks on your side. Client-owned items are the ones that move your deadlines, so they belong in the minutes and in the follow-up email, not only in your head. **How many action items should a meeting produce?** As many as were actually agreed. A long list from a one-hour call is often a sign that discussion points were written up as tasks. If an item will not be checked at the next meeting, it is probably a note rather than an action. --- TrackHeros is in early access: https://trackheros.com/#early-access