• Think through what you really want, that will satisfy your concerns.
• Decide to be businesslike and use the mediation time to work productively.
• Locate and bring with you all documents, financial information, and a brief point-form history of the situation or chronology of events.
• Do any homework assigned to you after the previous session, such as finding the value of an asset, locating documents, or confirming dates that are important to the issues.

Itasha O'Gilvie is a divorce mediator with Toronto mediation firm Take 2 Mediation. She can be reached at (866) 640-4760 or (416) 628-2026. View her Divorce Magazine profile.