What is the deal with all the meetings? If you've found yourself sitting in a meeting to plan a meeting then you know very well one of the greatest "office pains" in existence. Far too many meetings are poorly planned and organized -- that leads to a lot of sidetracking and time wasting. Sometimes you find yourself sitting with your colleagues only discussing how the topics of conversation will be covered in an upcoming meeting... What a waste!
Fortunately there are some pretty smart ways to keep you from pulling your hair out though.
Forbes claims that by simply stating the objective, you can save 17 minutes of time in a meeting! So instead of sitting down and just sailing from one thing to another without accomplishing anything significant, just say what you want to achieve and you will save some time!
Because you have a clear reason for the meeting, it is also clear which subjects are off-topic. According to Entrepreneur, establishing a "parking lot" where good ideas of conversations go to be revisited later can keep you from bird-walking from topic-to-topic. This protects the precious dignity of the person trying to derail your meeting, allowing you to bring it up later or send the idea to "file 13."
The Muse makes the suggestion that perhaps you don't need as much time as you are scheduling. Try setting less time to accomplish the meeting and then set a timer to run that everyone in the meeting can see. There's something about a countdown timer that gets people to move quickly.
Set an office culture of starting promptly and ending on time (or even early!). Room scheduling software will keep your conference rooms organized so colleagues know where to be and when.
Business.com makes the wild, but very interesting suggestion that you could schedule a walking meeting. Being physically active is always a good thing, allowing the blood to flow to your brain a little better and give you more opportunity for great ideas! It also helps people get to the point because when you get right down to it, we all just don't really want to walk.
Meetings may get a bad rap, however, they are a vital part of office culture. Meetings are vital for collaboration, building consensus, and finalizing decisions. They even have the social benefits of helping teammates build positive working relationships.
So why do meetings suck? Because they are poorly organized and don't have a purpose leading to much wasted time.
You can create a better meeting culture starting today. Make sure meetings have objectives, avoid spending time on the wrong topics and use everyone's time wisely. Set the right venue for the specific meeting. Instead of being a cause of distractions, use smart office technologies, like visitor check-in apps for business, to improve meeting effectiveness. Implement these tactics and everyone will start to be excited -- not dread -- meetings.