Let’s face it. Meetings suck. They take time away from real work. But you’re really too blind to see it. I slowly started taking more and more meetings. 30 minutes here 30 minutes there and all of a sudden my day was scattered with meetings. The problem was that I couldn’t get any real work done. I didn’t have enough time between meetings to think about a hard problem for a long period of time.
As soon as I realized my meeting problem I experimented with ways to make it more efficient. Having meetings only in the morning. Having meetings only in the afternoon. Having no meeting days. What worked best for me was having meetings only one day a week. Every other day was free to work on hard problems. I dramatically reduced the amount of meetings I had. The meetings I did have became more efficient. Here’s how I did it.
Plan One Day for Meetings
Pick any day of the week. Mark that time as available on your calendar. People will see that all other days are unavailable. I picked Tuesday because it’s in the middle of the week and everyone probably is already booked for another meeting. The beauty of this is that if some decision really needed to be made it would filter its way up to me without needing a planned meeting. A quick phone call or chat online can resolve it. 30 minutes saved!
Prepare In Advance
How many times do you show up to a meeting with another person needing to get up to speed on everything? Yeah, don’t be that person. I always have an agenda in mind and know what decision needs to be made by the end of the meeting. I look over any documents we need to discuss beforehand and come ready with questions or feedback. Not being prepared in advance means you’ll waste precious time getting up to speed.
Cut Out Unnecessary Meetings
Restricting yourself to meetings only one day a week forces you to think hard before accepting one. Do you really need to have a meeting to accomplish your goal? What if you could just do it over email or a quick Skype call? Try saying no to a meeting. I usually ask people what they want to accomplish in a meeting. If it can be done without a meeting then I would suggest to tackle the issue now instead of a few days from now. Everyone is happy.
People are conditioned to think you need to have a meeting to get things done. And people are conditioned to feel important going to meetings. In reality, meetings accomplish very little for the time you spend in it.
Let People Schedule Around You
By having only one day open people are going to ask if you can meet another day. Try hard to not budge from your schedule. If they really need to meet you they will move their calendar around. Most people move meetings all the time. So it’s a normal thing for them. You no longer are a slave to meetings so you do things differently.
When I tell people I’m only free to meet a certain day they’re pretty good at accommodating to my schedule. Of course an occasional meeting will slip in on a no meeting day. I’m just happy I removed a good portion of unnecessary meetings from my life.
Can you share some ways you’ve cut down on meetings?
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