Agendas, Always. Agendas, Immediately.

Agendas aren’t sexy, but they make you a better human.

Agendas are potentially life-changing.

Here is how to create one:

Before a call or meeting, you ask, “What do we want to accomplish on this call/meeting?”

You write it all down.

This becomes a set of points you use.

This sounds so stupidly ridiculously obvious, but the vast majority of the time, people don’t have agendas. So you have long, rambling-on discussions that frustrate everyone and get nothing done.

Here’s a recommendation: Make agendas mandatory for every call/meeting.

If you don’t have one at the start of a call or meeting, slow down and make one before you even socialize.

The agenda becomes something you can come back to again and again. My very busy and very effective friend, Ted Gonder, is the Executive Director of Moneythink, a nonprofit that was honored by President Obama recently for the work they’ve done in bringing financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills to kids from urban backgrounds.

He said, “Making agendas always has been one of the highest productivity gains I’ve ever gotten — in my entire life.” And Gonder has gotten a lot of success and effectiveness in his life.

Unscientifically, three times the ground seems to be covered when you have an agenda. And you’re then free to end a meeting after 10 or 20 minutes instead of going the entire length, if you accomplished everything.

A final point to put Agendas on steroids — create a folder on your desktop or in Evernote. Call it “Agendas.” Then, as soon as you have a call or meeting scheduled, brainstorm and make your part of the agenda for it right away.

By always doing this, there becomes no chance that there’s no agenda. Even if you wind up running late in traffic, if the meeting starts early, or similar, you’ve still got some outline of points to cover.

Some people resist agendas because they feel they stifle creativity. Just the opposite, actually — agendas mean you can clear all the imminent business quickly, and then can just socialize and do high-concept thinking if that’s what you’d like to do.

Set agendas, always. Don’t start a meeting without them. As soon as you agree to go to a meeting, make a rough agenda for it immediately. It doesn’t sexy or revolutionary, but it is life changing.

Sebastian Marshall is the author of The Strategic Review, with strategy, history, and operations in long-form high-quality writing for thinking people. You can get your subscription for free at http://www.thestrategicreview.net