How to Recover a Meeting That's Gone Off the Rails

Naming the drift out loud is often enough to reset it.

1. Pause and name it plainly: "We've drifted from the agenda — should we park this and come back to X?"
2. Write down tangential topics for a follow-up rather than dropping them entirely.
3. Refocus on the original goal of the meeting explicitly before continuing.
4. If the meeting is unsalvageable, it's fine to end early and reschedule with a tighter agenda.

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