1 Simple Habit That Will Help You Get More Out of Every Meeting

It’s a typical Monday morning in corporate America. You grab a cup of coffee, log in, and scan your inbox for anything urgent before checking your calendar. As usual—back-to-back meetings.

You’ve got a 10 a.m. call with a vendor about supply issues, followed by an 11 a.m. marketing meeting to review new ad creatives. Then a noon 1-on-1 with a key team member. And you might even turn your 1 p.m. into a working lunch. In other words: a typical Monday.

What’s worse than a packed day of meetings? Realizing that none of them actually moved the needle. Lots of talk, a few takeaways—but little progress. You’ll likely meet again in a few days to cover the same ground.

Sound familiar? Here’s one simple habit that can change everything:

Get it in writing.

You’ve just wrapped up a productive face-to-face or Zoom call. You have five minutes left. What you do next determines whether the meeting was valuable or a waste of time.

At the end of every meeting, I say:

“So to recap, here are the three action items: Item one… item two… item three…”

I confirm ownership of each task, write it down in my notebook, and follow up with an email summarizing the action items and their owners.

When your team sees this done consistently—clear takeaways, clear ownership, clear follow-up—you’ll notice they begin to adopt the same habit. This simple structure boosts accountability and builds momentum for future meetings.

What if there are no action items?

This habit not only makes meetings more productive—it also helps identify when a meeting shouldn’t have happened at all. If a meeting ends with no action steps, that’s often a sign it wasn’t worth having in the first place.

While not every meeting requires action items, consistently writing them down will spotlight unproductive meetings—and help you cut down on those that don’t drive results. That means more time to focus on meaningful work that grows your business.