Most people open Mem Chat for the first time and aren't sure what to type. It's a blank text box. There's no menu of options, no pre-built templates, no suggested queries. Just a cursor and the question: what do you ask an AI that has read all your notes?

The answer, it turns out, is almost anything. But some queries are dramatically more useful than others. Below are 15 queries organized by use case — each one drawn from patterns that heavy Mem users rely on regularly. Try them verbatim, or adapt them to your own notes.

Weekly Review

1. "What should I follow up on from this week?"

This is the single most popular query among power users. Type it on a Friday afternoon and Mem scans every note from the past week — meeting notes, voice captures, quick typed thoughts — and returns a list of commitments, open items, and threads you started but didn't finish.

It replaces the entire GTD weekly review ritual with one sentence. No scanning through task lists, no opening seven apps. Just one question, and you know what needs your attention. For a deeper dive into this workflow, see the one-question weekly review guide.

2. "Based on my notes from the last two weeks, what are my top priorities right now?"

When you feel scattered — too many projects, too many threads, unclear what actually matters — this query cuts through the noise. Mem identifies recurring themes and the topics getting the most attention in your notes, then ranks them. What comes back often surprises people. You think you're focused on one thing; your notes reveal you've been spending time on something else entirely.

3. "Give me an overview of my last 14 days."

Broader than the follow-up query, this is useful for writing status updates, preparing for a manager check-in, or just understanding where your time went. Mem synthesizes two weeks of meetings, decisions, and captures into a structured summary. What would take you an hour to reconstruct takes seconds.

Meeting Prep

4. "Prepare me for my meeting with [person/topic]."

Before any meeting, type this. Mem pulls together everything relevant: your last conversation with this person, any open action items, related notes from other meetings, and context that might be useful. Some users ask for it in progressive depth: "Give me the 5-second version, 15-second version, and 1-minute version" — so they can prep appropriately whether they have one minute or five.

Mem's Heads Up feature also surfaces related notes automatically before meetings, but this query lets you go deeper with specific questions. See the meeting prep guide for more.

5. "What are the open action items from my last meeting with [person]?"

Targeted and practical. Before a 1:1 or recurring sync, this query ensures you don't walk in having forgotten what you both committed to. It's especially powerful for managers running multiple 1:1s — the context for each person stays sharp even when you're switching between eight different relationships in a week.

6. "What has [project or topic] looked like over the past month based on my notes?"

This gives you the arc of a project, not just the latest status. Mem reads through a month of meeting notes, decisions, and captures related to the topic and summarizes the trajectory. Useful before a stakeholder update, a retro, or a strategic decision about whether to continue investing in something.

People Lookup

7. "Summarize my interactions with [person] and list any next steps."

Your notes contain a rich record of relationships — every meeting, call, and conversation captured over time. This query synthesizes all of it into a portrait of the relationship: what you've discussed, what's been decided, and what's still open. It's the foundation of using Mem as a personal CRM.

8. "Who have I been meeting with most frequently over the past month?"

This reveals relationship patterns you might not be conscious of. Are you spending all your time with one team and neglecting another? Is a client relationship getting more attention than it warrants? The answer comes from your actual meeting notes, not your perception of where your time goes.

Research Synthesis

9. "Compare all the [options] I've been researching."

When you've been evaluating vendors, service providers, tools, or any set of options — and you've captured notes on each — this query builds a comparison table from your own research. Fee structures, features, pros, cons — organized side by side without you building a spreadsheet. For more on this workflow, see the guide on capturing and comparing options for any decision.

10. "What are the key takeaways from my research on [topic]?"

Maybe you've been clipping articles, recording voice notes after reading, and capturing thoughts on a subject over weeks. This query synthesizes it all into a summary. Useful for writing a report, making a recommendation, or just consolidating your thinking. It's especially valuable for professionals who do ongoing research as part of their work.

Task and Priority Management

11. "What are all my open action items across my meetings this week?"

This is the cross-meeting action item roll-up that most project management tools promise but never deliver — because they require you to manually enter every task. In Mem, if your meeting notes include action items (even as simple bullet points), this query finds and aggregates them. For more on never losing these, see the meeting action items guide.

12. "Based on my notes, what should I focus on today?"

The daily version of the priority query. Mem looks at your recent captures, any meetings on today's calendar, and open threads to suggest where your attention should go. It's not a task list — it's a prioritized recommendation based on everything you've been working on.

Content and Communication

13. "Draft a status update based on my notes from the past week."

Instead of spending 20 minutes writing a weekly update from memory, ask Mem to draft one from your actual notes. Meeting outcomes, decisions made, progress updates, blockers — all pulled from what you already captured. You review, edit, and send. The drafting work drops from 20 minutes to 2.

14. "Help me write a follow-up email based on today's meeting with [person]."

Right after a meeting, while the context is fresh in your notes, ask Chat to draft the follow-up. It includes the key discussion points, agreed-upon next steps, and any deadlines mentioned — all drawn from your meeting note. You edit for tone and hit send.

Personal Retrieval

15. "Where did I save [that thing]?"

The catch-all retrieval query. "What was the name of that restaurant someone recommended?" "Where did I put the confirmation number for the hotel?" "What movie did my friend say I had to watch?" If it's in your notes — typed, spoken, clipped, or forwarded — Mem finds it.

This is especially useful for people who use Mem for both work and personal life. The same system that tracks your sprint planning and meeting notes also holds your travel confirmations, recipe ideas, and gift lists. One search, one system, everything findable.

Getting More From Chat

A few principles that make Chat queries more effective:

Be specific about time. "This week," "the last 30 days," "since January" — time boundaries help Chat filter to the right notes and give more relevant answers.

Reference collections. If you've organized notes into collections, reference them in your query. "What's the latest on my @ProjectAlpha collection?" scopes the answer to exactly the right notes.

Ask follow-up questions. Chat is conversational. If the first answer isn't detailed enough, say "go deeper on the second point" or "what are the risks?" Treat it like a conversation with a colleague who's read all your notes.

Don't worry about perfect phrasing. Chat understands intent, not just keywords. "What happened at work this week?" and "Summarize my professional activities over the past 7 days" return similar results. Type naturally. For more on how Chat works, see the Chat guide.

The Underlying Principle

These 15 queries work because of one thing: you've been capturing. Every meeting note, voice recording, quick thought, and clipped article adds to the pool that Chat draws from. The more you capture, the more useful each query becomes. After a month, Chat returns good answers. After six months, it returns answers you couldn't have produced yourself — connections across hundreds of notes that no human memory could hold.

Your notes are only as valuable as your ability to use them. Chat turns a static archive into a working tool.

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