Are You Wasting Your Time In Too Many Meetings?

Work from home also means endless meetings. You need to ask yourself how much time you spend your time in meetings and how much of it is useful. Not just the employees, the meetings affect the company’s spending too. Meetings drain the energy and a lot of time is lost. It takes time away from execution. Most meetings last for about one hour and an 8-hour workday is a traditional workday, having multiple meetings in an 8-hour workday can become taxing. Have you ever found yourself asking questions like: Was this meeting necessary? This could have been an email. You could have just texted me about this.

Here’s how you can help your team escape from the havoc of endless meetings and enable them to have a more productive day: 

First and foremost, think of these criteria before hosting a meeting.

Is the meeting needed?

Before deciding on the duration of a meeting, ask if the issue in hand requires a meeting that will take everyone’s time. Companies have ended up wasting time at meetings, things that could have been solved with an email are solved in meetings. So ask yourself if it’s needed. The best way to judge that is consider the relevance of the meeting, in context of ongoing work.

Are you prepared?

For a meeting to be useful, there needs to be proper planning, setting the agenda, setting the goals. Spend some time planning the meeting, set everything, make it clear. In doing so, the meeting runs smoothly and doesn’t waste anybody’s time.

Who all needs to be there?

After deciding on the need for the meeting and planning the meeting, look for the right people needed for the meeting. Don’t call anyone and everyone and waste their time. Not everyone has the same work, only call people you need to do the work. This way, the discussions in the meeting can be meaningful and the work will be efficient.

Meaningful Meetings: Do they even exist?

Yes. They can.

Meetings are not completely useless, here’s when meetings are critical.:

Problem-solving: Various problems come up now and then and to solve them, employees need to work on them together by holding a meeting and discussing how to solve them.

Brainstorming Sessions: Some things can’t be discussed in emails, they need real-time discussions. The host needs to look for a time that is convenient for everyone, host a meeting, have discussions without waiting for people to reply via email, and brainstorm right there. Meetings are the best place for real-time discussions, it can prove to be very effective. People can be assigned tasks through meetings so that after the meeting they can go right back to work.

Selling: When it comes to selling something to the stakeholders, persuade them to get something done, it is imperative to hold a meeting to discuss how to persuade the stakeholders. The stakeholders can be stubborn, with a meeting one knows what to say and how to stand strong and face the stakeholders, people persuading the stakeholder are also not confused with regards to what to say.

Meetings can be called a necessary evil. Focus on your priorities, be more thoughtful, bring more structure to the meeting and you will be fine. Host meetings only when it is needed, listen to your employees, accommodate their work times and problems. Look for increasing their productivity and don’t drain out their energy with multiple meetings in a day.