# Who’s waiting on you? How to read the promises from your meetings Published: 2026-10-20 Source: https://groupthink.com/releases/whos-waiting-on-you/ ![A meeting recap's Action items block listing two commitments, next to Nora Sandoval's page showing Commitments grouped under You owe Nora and Nora owes you.](https://media.groupthink.com/uploads/2026/10/whos-waiting-on-you-featured.png) Video: https://media.groupthink.com/uploads/2026/10/whos-waiting-on-you-explainer-music.mp4 Most promises made in meetings are small. You say you’ll send the deck. A client says she’ll check with her team and get back to you. Someone offers you an introduction and you say yes. Nobody writes these down, because each one seems too small to write down, and by Thursday half of them are gone. The other person usually still remembers. A promise you forgot is still a promise to them. The ones made to you matter too. If Theo said he’d send the contract and hasn’t, you’re the one waiting, and you may not have noticed. Groupthink is a memory for the people in your life and work. When Groupthink records one of your meetings, it [picks out the commitments people made](https://groupthink.com/releases/meeting-action-items/) and keeps them, with who made each one and, where it can tell, to whom. You don’t tag anything or take notes during the call. This post covers where to find that list and how to read it. ## Where the list shows up There are three places to look, and each answers a different question. **At the bottom of the meeting recap.** Open the meeting and stay on the Summary tab. Near the end is a block called Action items, with the line “Commitments extracted from this meeting” under it. This is what was promised in that one conversation. The block fills in a few minutes after the meeting ends, and until then it says it’s still working. **Action Items, in the sidebar.** This is every meeting at once, grouped by due date: Overdue, Today, This week, Later and No due date. Most promises made out loud don’t come with a date, so expect most of yours under No due date. You can also group the list by Project or by Relationship. Grouping by Relationship is the better view when you’re about to see someone. **On a person’s page.** Open someone from Relationships and scroll to Commitments. It sorts what was promised between the two of you into three groups: You owe Nora, Nora owes you, and Not sure who owes whom. Under each one is where and when it was said, such as “From Weekly sync · Sep 12”. There are no scores, counts or overdue markers on this section. It’s a record of what was said, shown back to you. ## How to read it **Read it before a conversation.** The list is most useful in the five minutes before you talk to someone. Before a call with Nora, open her page and look at Commitments. If something is under You owe Nora, either do it first or be ready to say where it stands. If something is under Nora owes you, you can ask about it without having had to remember that you were waiting. **Check the direction.** When Groupthink can tell which way a promise runs, the row on Action Items says You owe next to the person’s name, or owes you after it. Most rows have no label, either because the conversation didn’t make the direction clear or because the item is a plain task with nobody else attached. On a person’s page, the unclear ones go under Not sure who owes whom. If a label is wrong, click it on Action Items to change it to I owe them, They owe me or Not a commitment. A row with no label has nothing to click. **Treat the Suggested ones as maybes.** Some promises are made softly, as an offer to help that the other person accepts a minute later. Those appear in their own Suggested section, below the confirmed items in a recap and near the top of Action Items. They don’t count as something you owe until you accept one, and they stay off the person’s page until then. **Check the wording against what you remember.** The list is pulled from the conversation automatically and it can get things wrong: the wrong owner, a promise that was a joke, two promises merged into one. On Action Items, each item from a meeting has a button that opens the recap it came from, so the context is one click away. ## You don’t have to tick anything off Items can be checked off on Action Items or in the meeting recap. Due dates and changes to the wording are made in the recap. The list is useful without any of that. The point is that the promises are written down somewhere other than your head, and you can look at them before the next conversation. The follow-through happens with the person, not in the app. If you do check off a row labeled You owe, it stays in view under Done, not yet told until you mark that you’ve told them, because finishing a thing and telling the person it’s finished are two different steps. Marking it doesn’t send anything. ## What you need for this Commitments come from meetings Groupthink records, and from notes you add about a person. Recording a meeting is part of a paid plan, and it works during a trial too. [Auto-start recording](https://groupthink.com/docs/auto_start_recording) covers how to have Groupthink join your calls. After your first recorded meeting ends, the recap’s Action items block fills in a few minutes later. The [Action Items guide](https://groupthink.com/docs/action_items) covers the rest: suggestions, unassigned items, filters, and what the empty states mean. If you already use Groupthink, open [Action Items](https://app.groupthink.com/intelligence/action-items) and group the list by Relationship. If you don’t have Groupthink yet, [start free, with 30 days of Pro](https://app.groupthink.com/).