Status updates are written before you sit down. Live time is for blockers, decisions, and the conversations that actually need a room.
The typical 1-1 goes like this: "So, how's everything going?" Fifteen minutes of status recitation. A few surface-level questions. Time runs out. The hard conversation — the blocker, the decision, the thing that actually needed two humans in a room — gets pushed to next week. Repeat indefinitely.
The ED3 1-1 template fixes this by splitting the meeting into two parts: a written pre-read that handles status, and live time that handles only what writing can't — decisions, unblocking, and the conversations that require trust and nuance.
"If your manager learns what you've been working on during the 1-1, you've already wasted the first fifteen minutes."
The template operationalizes three principles. It ensures every 1-1 exists for a defined purpose beyond "checking in" (P1). It treats delay and ambiguity as decisions that must be named explicitly — if something is stuck, say so, with a date (P3). And it moves status updates into writing where they belong, freeing live time for what actually needs a room (P6).
The result is 1-1s that are shorter, more useful, and — counterintuitively — more human. When you're not burning time on "what did you do this week," you can actually talk about the things that matter: career growth, hard problems, the conversation someone's been avoiding.
The report fills this in and shares it before the meeting. The manager reads it async. None of this gets recited aloud.
The manager has already read the pre-read. The meeting starts at the blockers, not at "so what are you working on?"
Blockers first (5 min)
Start with what's stuck. The manager's job here is to unblock: escalate, approve, connect, or decide. If a blocker needs more than 5 minutes, it probably needs its own Decision Brief.
Decisions (5 min)
The report brought recommendations. The manager decides or delegates. No open-ended "what do you think we should do?" — the thinking was done in writing.
Live topics (15 min)
The conversations that actually need two humans. Career, feedback, strategy, the thing someone's been avoiding. This is where 1-1s create real value — and it only gets this time because you reclaimed it from status updates.
Capture & close (5 min)
What was decided? Who owns what? When? Write it down on the spot — not in a follow-up email three hours later. The pre-read becomes the decision record when you annotate it with outcomes.
Typical 1-1 (30 min)
ED3 1-1 (30 min)
You don't need organizational buy-in to start. One manager and one report can adopt this template tomorrow. Here's how to introduce it without it feeling like overhead:
Start with one report. Try it for two weeks. When the 1-1s get noticeably better, the format spreads on its own.
Keep the pre-read short. Five to ten minutes to write, two minutes to read. If it's longer, the report is over-documenting — coach them to be terse.
The manager reads before the meeting. Non-negotiable. If the manager hasn't read it, the report has no reason to write it. Model the behavior.
Don't fill awkward silence with status. If blockers and decisions are handled in ten minutes, you have twenty minutes for the conversations you've been deferring. Use them.
Download the template
A clean, tool-agnostic version you can adapt to Google Docs, Notion, Confluence, or wherever your team works.