Consumed By Meetings

The Wall Street Journal reports that CEO’s spend a third of their time in meetings. How much of your time is consumed by meetings? Is there value in the meetings you attend?

Double or triple bookings on your calendar are not a badge of honor. It’s unfair to you and to the results you want to achieve to be in meetings all day long. To avoid getting consumed by meetings we suggest:

• Don’t accept a meeting invitation without an agenda. If you don’t know why the meeting is happening or why you need to attend then “just say no.”
• Reduce the length of your meetings. Just because your computer calendar books in increments of an hour doesn’t mean all your meetings should be an hour. You can have a 10 or 20 minute meeting. Shorter meetings require you to be prepared, know what you want to get out of the conversation and say focused on the objectives.
• Document the decisions and action items from your meetings; then circulate the information to everyone in attendance. Too many times people meet and forget what they committed to do or misremember the decisions made.

Take control of your calendar. You have a limited number of hours in the day. It’s up to you to spend your time wisely and get the most value out of those hours. It’s ok to cut back on meetings and use your time in other valuable ways.

For more about effective meetings, we have a free download for you.