Tip
Create a template in your calendar app and use it every time you send a meeting invite. The template will remind you of what you need to include to prepare your attendees.
Details
Especially during hectic days, it is tempting to quickly send off a meeting invite with only the meeting title in the subject line. However, your invitees learn little about the meeting, how to prepare, and what to expect. Because of this, you have made their lives a little more difficult. They might still attend, but you will spend the first part of the meeting getting them aligned on why they are there and what their role is.
A meeting invite template benefits the organizer by serving as a checklist. It prompts you to consider what information you need to share, allowing your meeting participants to decide if this is the best use of their time and to understand how to come prepared.
There are several ways to create a meeting template in a calendar application. Some methods depend on the version and what your administrator has allowed to be used, others are just cumbersome. The approach I recommend is to simply create a new signature containing the meeting template information (MS Outlook, Gmail).
A meeting template could look like this.
For more information on what should be in the invitation, have a look at this post: “Make your invite answer What and Why”.