“Hey guys!” Maryn says as she joins our group coaching session via Zoom. “This is my second of seven meetings today!”
The troubling part is that she’s not troubled.
At her organization, back to back meetings have become the norm, leaving her only an hour plus a few 10-minute slivers to get her actual work done.
We’ve all experienced one of those days where our calendars have little to no grey space between scheduled blocks. For some of us, that’s the entire week.
A common obstacle for our clients who are managing teams and interdependent among other teams in order to get their work done is having too many meetings.
At first, it seems unavoidable. Especially in the work from home era, we rely on scheduled conversations for human interaction. Gone are the days of the quick decision by the water cooler or between floors on the elevator.
Yet we know that spacious blocks of open time are required to facilitate meaningful work. We need free bandwidth to move our most important, strategic projects forward. Back to back meetings are the antithesis of deep work.
No matter how many meetings you have, you probably have too many.
We often default to meetings when meetings aren’t really necessary. Maybe meetings make us feel important, or we feel hesitant about making decisions without other people involved.
What if your new default setting was to avoid meetings whenever possible?
Examining the ROI of meetings will increase your awareness, efficiency, and even your relationships. Fewer, more effective meetings will ultimately achieve your true goal of getting things done and uniting people because they will stop feeling as if their time is being wasted or stolen. When you value others’ time and get straight to the point, mutual value goes up and waste goes down.
Here are 11 concrete ways to tighten up your meeting strategy, and free your schedule, and get back in control of your time:
1. Ask: Does this have to be a meeting?
In my first career, I worked with a theater company creating original works. One of the questions we would ask ourselves while developing a new concept was: why must this be theater? If the concept would be better expressed or even equally well done through the medium of film, television, or another art form, we had to concede that it might be less powerful as a stage piece.
In the same vein, you can examine whether your goal truly needs to be accomplished through the medium of a meeting. Perhaps it’s really a briefing and could be achieved through recorded video. Perhaps the information could be communicated through a well-written email. Just because it’s easier for you to say it rather than type it doesn’t mean it’s a good use of everyone else’s time.
2. How much will this meeting cost?
Imagine that all of your teammates are hourly contractors. (They may in fact be.) Now add up the cost of all their time at a single meeting. For example, if you pay each of them $100 per hour, having an hour-long meeting with 5 people will cost not $100, but $500. Could that same $500 be spent a better way, by dividing and conquering versus duplicating thought on the same topic?
3. Who absolutely has to be there?
We often invite too many people to meetings. We feel guilty not inviting everyone, we play politics, or we just want to feel important by filling up all the chairs in the conference room.
Again, to be most efficient and respect everyone’s valuable time, only invite the people who truly need to be there. You can update everyone else later.
4. Solve the problem at the source.
This advice comes from the excellent book Rework by Jason Fried and Daniel Heinemeier Hansson. If the issue is happening in the lab, don’t meet in the conference room where the lab is an abstract thought. Meet in the lab. If the issue is something to do with your computer, meet at your desk and solve the problem.
5. End the meeting when it’s over.
Just because you scheduled one hour for a meeting doesn’t mean it needs to last the full hour. If you’ve solved the problem in 45 minutes, adjourn the meeting and let everyone get back to their day.
5a. Set goals instead of agendas.
What must happen by the end of this meeting? Once it’s achieved, the meeting is over.
6. Schedule shorter meetings.
Parkinson’s law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Put it to the test by scheduling less meeting time to complete a task or make a decision. It may be hectic to cover everything in 30 minutes instead of 60, but I bet you can do it. Then you have the bonus of an extra half hour to take action on the things that were decided and discussed.
7. Add an accountability structure.
What are the actions that people must take as a result of what was discussed or decided in the meeting? How will you hold them accountable? When will they report in?
Do not overdo this! You don’t need to purchase and install entirely new software to track all of this; it may just be an email they send to let you know that something’s finished. But without accountability, it’s more likely that the meeting will be a waste of time because nothing happens as a result.
8. Impose a limit on the number of meetings or amount of time in meetings that you spend.
If you control your schedule (and you probably control your schedule more than you think you do), then you need to put strict limits on the amount of time you spend in meetings and on the number of meetings you will have in a day.
For example, I know I’m only at my best for a maximum of four, mayyyybe five hours of active training or coaching, so I don’t take on more in a given day. Overdoing it would rob my clients of getting my best focus and energy.
If you are in meetings for six hours out of the day, leaving only to to do the work, you may be robbing not only yourself of your productivity, but you might be undermining the goals of the company at large. Nobody wins.
Set parameters on how many and what type of meetings you have capacity for in a given day or week. You can also reinforce this by outlining the rare circumstances under which you will break your rules. Perhaps you need an entire day every week that has no meeting scheduled, or you might concentrate all your meetings on certain days when you’re the most likely to be at your best.
Communicate these parameters to your team, especially if you have an assistant who manages your schedule.
9. Turn it into a walk and talk.
If you don’t have enough time at work you probably also struggle with not having enough time in life. One of the first things to suffer when there’s “not enough time” is exercise. So combined your exercise with your meeting. Take the person you’re meeting with on a walk, or take your call while walking.
Moving while communicating frees up other parts of your brain to fire, and you may find connections that would not have been available to you sitting in a conference room chair. Plus, you’ll get a better dose of oxygen to your brain to fuel the next thing on your schedule.
10. Quickly assess whether the meeting was worth it and what would make it better next time.
Immediately after your meeting or as the last three minutes of your meeting, assess whether the meeting was worth having and what would make it better if it’s part of a series. You can do this on your own or with your team.
If the meeting wasn’t worth it, cancel the rest of the meetings in the series. If there was something that could have made it more worthwhile, don’t hesitate to implement the necessary changes.
11. Cancel the meeting.
Are you realizing that an upcoming meeting isn’t worth it? Go ahead, cancel.
Of course, you shouldn’t cancel on someone at the last minute. If they’re already on the way to the coffee shop expecting you to be there, hop to it.
But if you’re about to enter a Zoom huddle that could be easily solved with an email, write the email instead. If you aren’t yet ready with the information that’s needed to have a productive conversation, consider postponing.
Once again, you value everyone’s time when you’re prepared, they’re needed, and the timing is right.
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Of course, meetings aren’t all bad. They give us an opportunity to collaborate, connect, and get insight on what others are doing. At the same time, the fewer meetings you have, the more productive and momentous they will be.
Protect your schedule and protect your energy. Set an example for the rest of your team.
