Excuses for Not Reading the Pre-Read

The pre-read is a document circulated before a meeting so that the meeting can begin at the interesting part. In practice it is circulated at 23:40 for a nine o'clock, runs to thirty-one pages including four appendices, and is described in the invite as a quick review. Nobody has read it. This is knowable from the first ninety seconds of any such meeting, in which four people say 'thanks for putting this together' and nobody says anything about page nineteen. The genuinely useful move is to say so early. If you admit at minute two that you've skimmed it, the meeting can adjust and become a walkthrough, which is what it was always going to be. If you nod along and then ask a question that is answered on page four, you have cost everyone the same time plus your credibility. Honesty here is efficient rather than brave. And the sturdiest version, when you're feeling bold, is the group audit: nobody else has read it either, so shall we take ten minutes and read it together? The room will be relieved. Below are ten excuses for not reading the pre-read, plus twenty in the generator.