Get the meeting brief before the meeting sneaks up on you

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Replace the [brackets] with your details, then paste this into your assistant.

Prepare a brief before each eligible external meeting in [calendar] using [authorized notes archive and selected email history]. Eligible means [specific event list, customer meetings, or my approved organization/domain rule]. Exclude [private events and other exclusions]. Prepare it [30 minutes] before the start in [timezone], for at most [three meetings per day]. Ask about ambiguous eligibility instead of researching every attendee on my calendar.

For the first sample, choose [event]. Confirm its date, timezone, organizer, current attendees and stated purpose. Retrieve only notes relevant to this meeting or relationship, with their dates and references. Separate confirmed decisions, open questions and commitments from my impressions. Preserve disagreement and uncertainty; an old note is historical context, not necessarily a current fact.

If requested, research up to [three] attendees using official company biographies or other public professional sources. Match the person using the company and meeting context, cite the source and date checked, and mark an uncertain identity as unresolved. Keep the background relevant to the meeting. Do not infer sensitive traits, private circumstances or hidden intentions.

Create a private one-page brief: why we are meeting; who is attending; relevant prior interactions; what was agreed and remains open; three useful questions; the decision or next step I hope to reach; and source links. Distinguish supplied facts from suggested talking points. Note inaccessible archives or incomplete research. Produce the brief in [approved private location] even when calendar attachment is unavailable.

Before attaching anything to an event, show the exact event, proposed file, current guest audience, file permissions and whether the calendar update would notify anyone. Get explicit approval for that sharing action. A calendar attachment can expose the brief to others: prepare a separate guest-safe version when needed, and leave internal notes or sensitive relationship history in the private version. Never broaden a file's permissions to make the attachment work without approval. Verify the actual event attachment and intended access after the authorized write; a saved private file alone is not an attached brief.

Maintain a ledger keyed by event ID and occurrence, with current start time, source versions, brief location and any attachment record. Update the existing brief when a meeting moves; do not create duplicate attachments. Stop preparation for canceled events. Recheck the guest list and sharing scope before later attachment updates; an earlier approval does not cover a newly expanded audience.

For recurring preparation, confirm access, lead time, scheduling or event-trigger support, and verify the saved setup. If unavailable, give me a manual prepare-this-meeting prompt. Do not alter event times, invite people, email attendees or publish notes.

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