Have you ever participated in a meeting and spent half of the meeting trying to decipher what it was about? One way to minimize the chance of someone sitting through your meetings scratching their heads or walking away confused is to set and share clear meeting objectives.

Even if you don't have time to create an official agenda, determining what you want to accomplish by the end of the meeting will help you create a plot line for the conversation and focus your thoughts and energy.

Clearly outlining the goals for your meeting will also help set expectations -  your meeting participants can focus and participate fully if they understand the end goal and what you need from them.  You don't need to create anything fancy or even send it out ahead of time (though that is often helpful).  

At minimum, when you start the meeting, outline the objectives and see if anyone has questions or additions.   If you do have time to create an agenda, having clear objectives makes that exponentially easier. 

Basically, each objective is an agenda item, you just have to decide how much time to allow for that item.  It’s a fairly simple step toward making your meetings more focused and meaningful.