Pre-Write the Decision Before the Meeting
Added 2026-11-05
Bringing a draft beats bringing an open question.
A meeting is coming up: [purpose, attendees, decision needed]. Write the pre-meeting draft decision: 1) turn the decision into two or three concrete options, each with its cost and who is affected; 2) for each section state my leaning and the reason, clearly marked as a draft; 3) list the key facts that must be confirmed and who supplies each; 4) mark which disagreements are about facts and which are about trade-offs; 5) state what happens next if it cannot be decided today; 6) give the paragraph to produce at the end of the meeting. The aim is to edit a draft, not to start from zero.
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Replace these placeholders 1
Swap the bracketed parts for your own details before sending.
[purpose, attendees, decision needed]
How to use
A meeting without a draft usually turns into a status update.
Try tweaking it
- Ask for three columns: conclusion, owner, deadline — ready to paste into a table.
- Let it organise only your notes; do not add decisions that were never made.
What you should get
- Task list with owner, deadline and blocker
- Escalations that need a decision, listed separately
Common mistakes
- Feeding raw notes and letting it fill in decisions that were never made.
- Getting owners without deadlines, so no task can be created.
How to check the output
- Every item has an owner and a date — ready to become a task.
- It does not record decisions that were never made.
Where it works
- Good for: turning verbal discussion into owner, deadline and blocker.
- Watch out: let it organise only the notes you supply — never let it infer decisions that were not made.