Your Meeting Needs a Parking Lot
You don't need to remember everything in order to be responsible for it.
I have a theory about why so many people leave meetings feeling like they have more work than they did when they walked in.
It’s not necessarily because the meeting was unproductive.
It’s because meetings generate information.
Ideas. Questions. Follow-ups. Things to revisit. Things someone mentioned in passing. A commitment you made. A commitment someone else made. A thought that has nothing to do with the current agenda but suddenly feels important.
And if you don’t have somewhere to put those things, your brain quietly volunteers to become the storage system.
That’s where the trouble begins.
We Carry Too Much in Our Heads
Think about how often you’re in the middle of something and suddenly remember:
“I need to follow up with Sarah.”
“We should probably revisit that proposal.”
“I had an idea for next quarter.”
“I need to ask someone about that.”
“We need to talk about this at the next leadership meeting.”
“I promised I’d send that.”
“I don’t want to forget that.”
None of those things necessarily needs your attention right now.
But because you don’t want to lose them, your brain keeps bringing them back.
You’re not working on the thing.
You’re just remembering that you need to work on the thing.
That is mental clutter.
And mental clutter is expensive.
It takes up attention. It interrupts focus. It creates the feeling that you’re behind, even when you’re actually being responsible and productive.
Your brain was designed for thinking, creating, connecting, solving, and making decisions.
It was not designed to function as a filing cabinet.
That’s Where the Parking Lot Comes In
The Parking Lot is a simple practice for clearing mental space.
The concept is straightforward:
When something matters but does not require action right now, capture it somewhere you trust.
Not in the back of your mind.
Not on a random sticky note.
Not in six different notebooks.
Not in an email you send yourself and hope you remember to find later.
In one predictable place.
The Parking Lot gives you permission to say:
“This matters. I’m not ignoring it. I’m just not carrying it right now.”
That distinction is incredibly important.
Because many of us confuse remembering something with being responsible for something.
But you can be responsible without continuously thinking about it.
You can capture it.
You can trust the system.
And you can return when you’re ready.
Not now. But not never.
What Belongs in Your Parking Lot?
The Parking Lot is designed for the things that are important enough to preserve but not urgent enough to act on immediately.
Things like:
Ideas you don’t want to lose
Questions that need more information
Future conversations
Follow-ups and commitments
Projects waiting for the right time
Opportunities worth exploring
Resources you want to revisit
Things you’re waiting on
Recurring thoughts that keep resurfacing
Topics that belong on a future meeting agenda
The goal is not to capture absolutely everything.
The goal is to capture the things that deserve a place outside your head.
Because once they have a place, your brain no longer has to keep reminding you they exist.
But the PDF Is Only Half of the System
When I first created The Parking Lot, I made a printable worksheet.
It was designed to be simple: write down what’s on your mind, identify the next step, and keep moving.
And that worksheet is useful.
But as I continued using the concept with clients, I realized something:
The real power of the Parking Lot isn’t the act of capturing information. It’s the rhythm of returning to it.
A worksheet is excellent for the moment.
A digital or spreadsheet-based Parking Lot is what helps you create a system.
Because eventually, the questions become:
What happened to that idea?
Did someone follow up?
Is this still important?
Does this need to move to my task list?
Is someone else responsible for it?
Should this be scheduled?
Am I intentionally choosing not to pursue it?
That’s where the Parking Lot becomes more than a note-taking tool.
It becomes a decision-making tool.
Capture Is Not the Same as Action
This is one of the most important distinctions in the entire practice.
Capturing something does not mean you have committed to doing it immediately.
In fact, capturing something gives you the opportunity to make a better decision about it later.
When everything is floating around in your head, every thought feels like an obligation.
When everything has a place, you can evaluate it with more clarity.
Is this still relevant?
Does this need action?
Is this someone else’s responsibility?
Does it have a date?
Should it become a task?
Should I intentionally park it?
Should I let it go?
That is the difference between being overwhelmed by information and being able to steward information.
The Parking Lot is not a place where things go to disappear.
It is a place where things go to wait for the right decision.
There Is Another Benefit I Didn’t Initially Anticipate
The Parking Lot also changes the way we show up in meetings.
Have you ever been in a meeting where someone says:
“Before we move on, I just want to make sure we don’t forget…”
And suddenly the entire group is trying to remember what was said three weeks ago?
Or someone raises a topic that is important, but not relevant to the current conversation, and the meeting gets pulled in a completely different direction?
The Parking Lot creates a shared language.
You can say:
“That’s important. Let’s park it.”
Which does not mean:
“That’s not important.”
It means:
“That matters enough to capture, but we don’t need to derail what we’re doing right now.”
That is a powerful leadership practice.
It protects the agenda without dismissing the person.
It creates room for ideas without allowing every idea to take over.
And it teaches teams that not every important thing has to be solved in the moment it is mentioned.
A Parking Lot Is a Practice in Stewardship
I use the word stewardship intentionally.
Because this is not really about productivity.
It’s about how we care for our attention, our commitments, our relationships, and our responsibilities.
We are constantly being entrusted with information.
Someone tells us something. Someone asks us to follow up. We have an idea. We notice an opportunity. We recognize a problem. We make a promise.
The question is:
How do we hold those things responsibly without allowing them to consume us?
The Parking Lot offers one answer.
Capture what matters.
Trust the system.
Return when you’re ready.
That’s not being less responsible.
That’s practicing stewardship of your attention.
This Is What Practical Systems Are Supposed to Do
A good system should not create more work than the problem it solves.
It should make the work easier to see, easier to manage, and easier to revisit.
It should reduce the number of things you have to remember.
It should help you distinguish between:
What needs action. What needs attention later. What belongs to someone else. What needs a date. What can be released.
And perhaps most importantly, it should help you carry less.
Because the goal isn't to capture more.
The goal is to carry less.
A system isn’t useful because it exists.
A system is useful because people use it predictably.
That’s why I encourage people to establish a regular Parking Lot review rhythm.
Weekly is a great starting point.
Not because every item needs to be acted on every week, but because every item deserves the opportunity to be reconsidered.
During your review, ask:
Does this still matter?
Does this need action?
Is someone else responsible?
Is there a date?
Should I schedule it?
Should I move it to my task list?
Should I intentionally park it?
Should I delete it?
The review is where the decisions happen.
Your Brain Is for Thinking—Not Storing
There is a reason this simple practice can feel surprisingly freeing.
When you know something has been captured, you no longer have to keep rehearsing it mentally.
You can stop saying: “I need to remember that.”
And start saying: “I know where that is.”
That is a very different experience. It creates clarity.
Clarity creates capacity.
And capacity creates room for better thinking, better decisions, better conversations, and better work.
Your brain is for thinking, creating, connecting, leading, and living.
Don’t use it as a filing cabinet.
Use a system.
Trust the system.
Return when you’re ready.
The Parking Lot template is now available from NarrowSpaces, right here.
(Sometimes it's hard to remember exactly what goes where, so I created this "How To" guide to help!)
Whether you use the printable worksheet for meetings or the digital version to create a predictable review rhythm, the practice is simple:
Capture it. Trust it. Come back to it.
Because you don’t need to remember everything in order to be responsible for it.
You just need a place you trust to hold it.
Less busy. More clarity. Greater impact.
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