Rule 12 of 33 · Chapter III — Meetings We Actually Keep
No agenda, no meeting
Why this rule exists
A meeting without an agenda is a group of people agreeing to figure out why they're in a room, on the clock, together, which is about the most expensive way to think we've invented. The agenda isn't bureaucracy; it's the forcing function that makes the organizer decide, before spending everyone's hour, what this meeting is actually for and whether it needs to exist at all. Half the time, writing the agenda reveals that the thing is really a document, or a decision one person should just make, and the meeting quietly cancels itself, which is a win. When a meeting does happen, the agenda tells attendees what to prepare and lets them judge whether they're even needed. Meetings are the single most expensive thing we do, because they multiply one hour by the number of people and subtract from everyone's focused time, so the bar for holding one should be high and visible. If it's worth pulling people out of deep work, it's worth ten minutes to say why.
In practice
Before you schedule a meeting, write down what decision or outcome it's for and what you need from each person. If you can't articulate that, don't schedule it; write a doc or make the call yourself. Send the agenda in advance so people can prepare or push back on attending. Invite the fewest people who can actually get to the outcome, and make attendance genuinely optional for anyone who's there just to listen, since they can read the notes. Start by restating the goal and end by confirming you hit it. If a recurring meeting stops having a real agenda most weeks, that's a signal to kill it, not to keep filling it out of habit.
When it doesn't apply
Some meetings are for connection, not output, our team lunches, one-on-ones, the occasional loose hangout, and those don't need a bulleted agenda, because relationship is the point. The rule targets working meetings, where the absence of an agenda is a real red flag.