The event prep checklist (10 minutes, every time)

Not every event warrants the full 30-minute prep ritual. Most don't. But every event you actually attend should clear a 10-minute baseline before you walk in. This checklist is that baseline - the floor below which an event becomes a coin flip.

Run through it on your phone, on the way to the venue, or 90 seconds before walking in. The point isn't depth - the point is that you've made the explicit decisions before the room makes them for you.

1. Know your goal

Finish this sentence in your head: "Tonight I'm looking for ______ because ______."

If you can't finish it crisply, you don't have a goal - you have an attendance. There's nothing wrong with that, but be honest about it. The rest of the checklist only matters if a goal exists.

2. Scan the guest list once

Pull it up on your phone if you haven't. Scroll through it once. You're not memorizing - you're calibrating: who's coming, what kinds of people are in the room, density of your ICP.

For 50% of events this step alone is the unlock. You realize the room isn't what you thought it was, and you adjust your goal or your exit time accordingly.

3. Star 3-5 names

From the scan, identify 3-5 specific people you want to find tonight. Not 10. Not "the right people, whoever they are." Three to five with names and faces.

If you can't find five, the room is wrong for tonight's goal. Decide whether to go anyway with a softer goal or skip.

4. Look at one LinkedIn profile

Pick the most important name on your starred list. Open their LinkedIn. Spend 60 seconds. You're looking for one specific thing you can reference in a first sentence: a post they wrote, a hire they made, a deal they closed.

If you only have time for one, that one is enough to make the evening worthwhile. Everything beyond that is upside.

5. Draft one opener

Write a one-line opener referencing the LinkedIn signal you found. Save it in your notes. Examples:

• "Saw you led the seed at [X] - we're building adjacent and would love your take on [Y]."
• "Read your post on usage-based pricing migrations - we're 6 weeks from doing the same thing."
• "Heard you just joined [company] - curious what made you pick them."

You'll have backups for the night by writing the first one. The act of drafting it primes you to find natural variants for the others.

6. Pre-write the follow-up

One sentence in your drafts. Generic enough to personalize fast:

Hey - great chatting at [event]. [Specific thing they said.] Sending the [article / intro] I mentioned. Open to [next step]?

You'll be tired tomorrow. The pre-write is what makes the follow-up actually happen.

7. Decide an exit time

Pick a wall-clock time you'll leave by. Two hours from arrival is usually right - that's when conversational energy plateaus and the room starts to thin.

Setting an exit time before you go means you don't spend the last hour on autopilot. You either work the room with intent or you leave.

8. Eat something

Not glamorous. Most non-glamour. The biggest reason people give up on networking at hour two is blood sugar - not the event quality. Five minutes of food before the train ride to the venue removes that variable entirely.

When to skip the checklist (and the event)

Three signals that you should skip the event entirely rather than just skip the prep:

1. Your three goal-names aren't coming. Confirmed via RSVP scan. The event won't deliver - don't go.
2. You can't finish the goal sentence. If you genuinely don't know what you'd be looking for, the evening is social. That's fine - just decide whether you want a social evening tonight.
3. You're exhausted. Tired event-going produces zero compounding outcomes and burns the energy you needed for tomorrow's harder work.

Why a checklist beats winging it

The lazy answer is that lists make you prepared. The deeper answer is that lists remove decisions. When you're tired at 6:45pm after a long day, the question "should I prep for this event?" will get answered "no." The question "run through my checklist?" gets answered "sure" because the cost is bounded at 10 minutes.

Six events of slightly-prepped attendance outperform two events of full-ritual attendance plus four winged ones. The floor is what makes the average work.