Could this meeting be replaced by an email?

If the answer is yes then you shouldn’t be having this meeting.

If the answer is no, then the purpose of the meeting should be clearly stated and everyone in the meeting should be on the same page.

If you’re looking to bring optimal brainstorming power to the meeting then you should provide all of your attendees with the full story well in advance.

An efficient meeting is a thing of beauty. When the problem is clearly defined, tangents are kept to a minimum and everyone is on the same page facing the right direction.

At the end of the day time is the most precious commodity and it shouldn’t be wasted unnecessarily.

One of the keys to efficiency I find is having the clarity of what you want to do.

The process of elimination is also a great tool in this case. If you can’t quite describe what it is yet, then start describing what it won’t be.