As much as people object to them, meetings are still an important part of the workplace. Meetings have the ability to disseminate information quickly and simultaneously to all participants. They also offer opportunities to discuss and elaborate on policy, process, or changes within an organization. However, meetings can also be derailed very quickly. Addressing these dead ends and distractions is vital to a productive workplace.

Luis Velasquez writing in the Harvard Business Review, recently shared 4 Distractions that Derail Meetings — and How to Handle Them. The first type of distraction are items he terms as “gravity problems.”

These occur when team members get sucked into discussing a challenge or issue that’s fundamentally unsolvable at the team level, much like the force of gravity. Trying to solve a gravity problem diverts time, mental capacity, and motivation away from solvable issues, leading to team frustration. In the previous example, company culture and leadership support are gravity problems that are distracting from the solvable issue: the product launch.

After listing three more, Valasquez provides strategies to keep meetings on task. The first one is to always determine the primary objective of the meeting.

Is the goal to make a decision, brainstorm, get people aligned, or something else? Keeping your eye on the overarching goal will help you develop a focused and clear agenda. For instance, in a decision-making meeting, the objective is to make a choice among different options. Thus, organizers must clearly understand the options, supporting data, decision-makers, and decision-making processes.

Learn about the other three distractions and more strategies on how to avoid them by reading the full article.