• Meetings are not for discovering what a meeting is about – That’s lazy.
• Meetings are not for getting up-to-speed on a topic – That’s a presentation.
• Meetings are not for meeting’s sake – That’s a play-date.

Or, even a small paragraph blurb that each person was required to read before joining a meeting? Like an ante to a poker game that shows that you are personally buying-in and care enough to invest your most valuable and scarce resource – TIME.

And if you or others don’t want to invest your time, that’s fine – but don’t show up to a meeting unprepared and waste the time of those who want to do meaningful work.

If it’s too much to ask folks to prepare for a meeting before showing up, then dedicate the first 5 minutes of each meeting to review of the one-pager. Everyone will read, consume and gather their thoughts about the topics at hand and be ready to dig in when the 5 minutes is up.

IF your meeting is meant to be an informal get together to shot the shit, just let it be known and make it optional. A great metric of a meeting is “did I leave this meeting smarter, better prepared and inspired?”