Meeting Cost Gate, Agendas, and Action Items
Decide whether to meet, estimate attendee cost, build a decision-first agenda, and extract actions with owners and due dates.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
That's worth thinking about. Meetings can be productive but they also take time. You might want to consider whether the topic really needs synchronous discussion or if asynchronous communication would work. Think about what you're trying to accomplish and whether everyone needs to be involved. Sometimes email or a document is more efficient. Other times a meeting is the best way to align. It depends on the urgency and complexity of the topic. What's the main goal you're trying to achieve?
MEETING COST GATE QUICK CALC: Attendees: 6 people Duration: 30min Loaded cost: 12/person/hr → 60 total Decision gate cost: 60/30min = 2 cost units GATE RESULT: ASYNC-FIRST ← justification below REASON: No real-time decision needed You're sharing a decision already made (Q3 roadmap cuts) Send 1-page outline async, wait 48hr for written feedback Schedule 15min sync-up only if disagreement surfaces Payoff: Free up 4 hrs of weekly calendar, keep 2-3 decisions per week async IF YOU'D DECIDED TO MEET: TIMEBOXED AGENDA (30min strict) 1. Restate goal (2min): 'Align on Q3 priorities given 20% headcount cut' 2. Present data (8min): Proposed roadmap cuts (already read async) 3. Discuss tradeoffs (15min): Which feature areas get smallest lift for effort? 4. Decide (3min): Vote or assign owner → escalate to leadership if blocked 5. Action recap (2min): Owner confirms timeline, dependencies, comms plan DECISION RULE: If no person in the room can make a binding decision, do not meet. BLOCKERS FLAGGED: • Sarah (Product owner) not on invite → reschedule or lose alignment • No decision criteria shared beforehand → attendees unprepared, extends meeting 2x OWNED ACTION ITEMS: • Engineering lead: Assess impact of cutting geolocation feature by EOD Friday (owner: Chen, due: 2026-08-01) • Product: Get Finance input on headcount assumptions (owner: Marcus, due: 2026-08-02) • Leadership: Approve final roadmap (owner: CEO, due: 2026-08-04) ORPHAN FLAG: No owner assigned for 'comms plan' step (meeting debtdefault = nothing happens)
About this skill
“Could this have been a message?” and “Who was supposed to do that?” are two failures of the same meeting. This skill checks whether live time is justified, builds an agenda around the decisions that need it, and turns meeting notes into actions with visible ownership and deadline gaps.
What it does
- Classifies a proposed meeting as ASYNC, NOT-READY, or MEET, with the reason and next step.
- Estimates attendee labor cost from duration and hourly rates, separating live time from preparation and follow-up.
- Identifies the decision owner, essential participants, required inputs, and the smallest useful meeting length.
- Builds timeboxes that add up, with a specific question and expected output for each agenda item.
- Converts messy notes into decisions, actions, open questions, and explicit missing-owner or missing-date flags.
- Supplies an async replacement or readiness checklist when a meeting should not proceed.
What you get
A concise recommendation sized to your request: a meeting verdict, a ready-to-use agenda, or an action register grounded in your notes. Estimates, suggested assignments, and unresolved commitments stay clearly labeled.
Best for
Team leads, project owners, founders, and operators who schedule working meetings or need reliable follow-through from informal notes.
SKILL.md preview
---
name: meeting-cost-gate-agendas-and-action-items
description: >-
Classifies proposed meetings as ASYNC, NOT-READY, or MEET using decision readiness, live interaction needs, and attendee labor cost. Builds decision-first timeboxes and extracts evidence-backed actions with ownership and deadline gaps. Use when the user says "should this be a meeting", "what does this meeting cost", "build an agenda", "we keep meeting without deciding anything", "turn these notes into action items", "nobody owns the follow-ups", or "can we handle this async".
---
# Meeting Cost Gate, Agendas, and Action Items
… (sign up to view the full skill)More productivity skills
View all Productivity skills →Apple-Style UI Engineer
Use when building any new UI component, screen, or page in React + Tailwind from a plain-text description, and the result must look like App
Zapier, Make and n8n Automation Recipe Builder
Designs no-code automations that run unattended: exact trigger, mapped fields, dedupe, error alerts, approvals, and monthly task cost.
AI Productivity System
A complete AI-driven system for planning your day, triaging tasks, and shipping more without burning out.
Daily Standup Writer from Git and Tickets
Turns your commits, PRs, reviews, and ticket moves into a 15-second standup post that never says shipped when it only merged.