You are 30 minutes into your 1-hour meeting, and you now realize what started out as meeting to discuss Marketing Strategies has transformed into "Ways to Improve Copier Etiquette."  One of the most important tools a business of any size can use for any type of meeting is a Meeting Agenda. 

Create a great meeting agenda in these 5 steps:

1. List the meeting’s discussion points in order of importance on the agenda.
2. Quickly assign a time limit for each topic covered. This will prompt you to trim down the meeting topics or happily trim down the overall meeting time.
3. Designate a "Bad Guy", aka Meeting Leader, to facilitate the meeting. Or, you can make your agenda the designated “Bad Guy.”  It works like this: “I would love to talk more about what you did over the weekend, but unfortunately we have a lot to cover.  Our Agenda says we only have 15 minutes to cover tax planning, so we need to start down our list.”
4. Bring your calendar to the meeting.  Most meetings require follow-up or scheduling. It's ultra handy to coordinate schedules right then and there to reduce homework for later.
5. Leave 5 -10 minutes for yourself after your meeting to download what you discussed. In other words, do not schedule back-to-back meetings. This step is as important as the meeting itself. Quickly make notes on what you want to do next, what you want to schedule next, what could be covered next time, who should be informed about the topics discussed. Or, add this step right into the agenda.

Whether your meeting is 30 minutes with a co-worker or a half-day event, an agenda gives all attendees a clear understanding on time and topics.  Be sure to also use agendas with outside services like strategy meetings with your CPA.  Email your agenda well ahead of time, asking for other topics.

Bringing back this classic and timeless tool will net big results every time.