Stuck in endless meetings?
Make better use of that time.
How much time do you devote to meetings? Your first answer might be: “Too much!” But seriously, do you have any idea what percentage of your work life is spent meeting with people? Try calculating it. And if meetings take just 20 percent of your time, and you work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, that’s a whopping 400 hours annually.
I often talk with coaching clients about how to cut down the number of hours they spend sitting at a conference table. You can reduce meeting time by:
- Agreeing with your colleagues to maintain shorter default times. For example, if your team always gathers on Monday mornings for an hour, commit to a new time limit of 45 minutes.
- Say “no.” Sometimes your presence isn’t all that important, and you can be excused simply by explaining that you have another commitment.
- Run better discussions. Particularly if you’re the leader, you can recapture wasted time by establishing good group habits, like always having an agenda, and insisting on punctuality.
But no matter how adept you are at managing your own meetings, and avoiding some others, you probably still spend a big chunk of your work time convening with colleagues.
You may sometimes feel like my client “Sharon,” who was frustrated because she felt stuck. Sharon wanted the chance to lead a team. But Jenny, her mentor, warned that some senior colleagues felt Sharon wasn’t ready to be a manager.
Sharon complained, “If I didn’t have to waste so much time sitting in their useless meetings I could really show them what I can do.”
Jenny countered, “You can’t get out of those meetings, so why not make better use of them? [Read more…] about 6 ways to get more from meetings
