Meeting Prep and Follow-Up

A meeting's value is mostly decided outside the meeting: in the ten minutes of prep most people skip, and the follow-up most people delay until it's awkward. That's good news, because both jobs are structured writing built from material you already have — exactly the kind of work AI handles well.

This lesson covers both sides: before (agenda, questions, primer) and after (action items, follow-up message).

To build a useful agenda, AI needs four things: why the meeting exists, who's attending, how long it runs, and what you need to walk out with. Give it those and ask for the questions too — the question list is often the sleeper hit, surfacing the thing you'd otherwise think of on the drive home.

Walking into unfamiliar territory — a new industry, a technical topic, a kind of conversation you've never had? Ask for a primer: the key terms, what people in that world tend to care about, and the questions a newcomer usually forgets to ask. Two minutes of reading and you're oriented.

The moment the meeting ends, your notes are at peak value — and dropping fast. Paste them in and ask for three things: decisions made, action items with an owner and a date, and open questions.

The follow-up message is short by design: one thank-you line, the decisions, the actions with owners and dates, and any open question. Sent the same day, it does two things — locks in what was agreed while everyone still remembers it, and quietly marks you as the most organized person in the room.