You've planned ahead and plotted out your agenda items for your meeting, prepared decision makers and have a defined purpose for the meeting. In spite of all of this, things will still come up that aren't on topic, take too much time to address or simply aren't a good fit for the meeting itself.
Addressing these kinds of items can easily be done through a bin list, or a running list of topics, decisions, maybe even Actions Required that need to be tracked but there might not be any line of sight to accomplish them. Rather than disrupt a meeting or take a topic too far into the weeds, simply place these items on an ongoing to-do list of sorts, called a bin list. The bin list is quick and easy to use as unlike an Action Required, there's no due dates, ownership or additional data to track other than what the item is. The intention is to capture just enough info so that everyone in the meeting recognizes what the item is and its intention, so that it can be addressed in the future.
This is the beauty of the bin list. It becomes a quick catch all for items to be addressed either outside of the meeting or even in a future meeting. And if a meeting is going better than planned with extra time remaining, you can easily review and knock out items from the bin list. But this is the ideal and most of the time this might not be the case. In these situations, if a binned item is a topic for another meeting, the facilitator can easily take care of this and schedule the time to ensure the topic is addressed.
In some kinds of meetings, such as on-going project or staff meetings, the bin list might be a standing agenda item across all meetings in the series. In this situation, not only will the bin list be posted for the current meeting minutes, but it should also reappear for future meeting invites to ensure that everyone is aware that there are outstanding items to be addressed.
The bin list shouldn't be a place where unwanted topics and tasks go to die, but instead these items should diligently be tracked towards resolution. Solving these binned items might not be a priority for your current meeting, but there should be some kind of a plan of attack over time or for particular intercepts.
The bin list is yet one more tool on your belt for effective meetings. By tracking binned items, you not only save yourself time and effort during meetings, but you also ensure that nothing falls through the cracks and that there's sufficient follow-up in the future. Using a bin list will help improve your meeting effectiveness while ensuring that important items are always tracked regardless of their relevance to the meeting at hand.