It can take weeks to get an important meeting together. You need to:

  • decide what needs to be decided at the meeting and construct a solid agenda
  • figure out who needs to be there (and who doesn't)
  • find a time that fits everyone's schedule (especially Maria and Will, who are always booked out for weeks).

When the big day finally arrives, all that prep work is a distant memory. These days, you have new priorities, and this meeting (one of five on your calendar today) is getting in the way of these new priorities. You’re tempted to just get through it, to run an easygoing, lightweight meeting that sort of circles around the issue at hand but doesn’t result in any decisions being made or problems being solved.

But it took a lot of effort to get these busy people together and thinking about the same problem. You brought them here, and here they are, ready to work. So work.

Meetings are precious (and when they’re not, they shouldn’t happen). Don’t waste them.