5 Things You Can Do To Spend Less Time In Meetings

Meetings have their place. They are important. But, they have somehow morphed into useless chats and check-ins with your team. There’s too many people who get pulled into countless meetings throughout their workday, only to do their actual work when they get home for the evening. The meetings they do sit through result in no real action, so there’s not even anything to show for the workday. That’s not ok. We’re saying you don’t have to put up with that anymore.

Here’s 5 things you can do to spend less time in meetings and take control of your workday.

There Are Other Ways To Collaborate.

There is a common rule at companies: If you can’t say something in just a few emails, it should be said in person. When we say in person, we don’t mean in a meeting. We’re suggesting once you’ve reached a couple of emails with someone, you should take immediate action. You either walk over to the respective people and figure it out then and there, or you pick up the phone and call them if they are not immediately accessible (or don’t work at the same location).

A lot of the time, even when an email thread only contains two people, things get lost in translation. It get worse as more and more people get added. So, we end up scheduling a meeting to clear things up and ensure expectations are aligned. Apply this thought process to colleagues, vendors, clients — absolutely everyone. By taking immediate action, you’re leaving little room for confusion and you’re being proactive. Who needs meetings when expectations are always clarified and confirmed?

Meetings Are For Strategy.

If you’re a leader, tell your team this. If you’re an individual contributor, suggest this to your manager. By designating meetings for strategizing, you will think of them as what they should be — rather than what they have become. Meetings should be used for high-level alignment for teams and brainstorming for future projects.

To always keep this top of mind, we suggest finishing meetings with a few big-picture ideas to hold on to moving forward. If these ideas are not articulated, the meeting was a waste of time. Think of them as goals and initiatives to brainstorm that you could not think of on your own, personal time. Does this sound like a lofty goal? It should. Meetings are meant to be strategic and not frequent.

Meetings Aren’t For Managers.

They’re for your team. Meetings have turned in to a way to run down to-do lists, which might not be the best use of your team’s time. The notorious 1:1 or weekly sync meetings are the epitome of this. As a manager, you go in each week, your report tells you what they’ve been working on (from a list of some sort), you tell them what is in the pipeline and you go your separate ways. Employees, we know you hate this too.

Meetings are a way to share information and combine brain power. Instead of being productive, high-level check-ins, they’ve become a little too down in the weeds. This might sound taboo, but keep your meetings in silos. Once you bring in more than one topic, the objective of the meeting can become unclear. It’s no wonder meetings end up in random conversations half of the time. Use this as a time to provide insight to your team on specific topics, whether you’re an individual contributor or leader.

Meetings Are Expensive, Stop Wasting Them.

Meetings have become mundane and too frequent. They’ve lost their importance. To help reprioritize them as the relevant events they should be, think about how you feel when you meet with someone important — your CEO, an investor, a client, etc. Well, you should feel like that before every meeting.

If you help set the tone for your organization, tell new hires this. If you’re an individual contributor, talk to your team about this. We know it’s a small suggestion, but the positive outcomes could be widespread. By making meetings important, relevant events (that no longer suck up you’re entire day) you’ll go in more prepared and focused. You’ll probably also leave the meeting with tangible goals. Talk to you colleagues today, tell them you don’t want to be pulled into meetings unless it’s life or death, cause working from home every night is getting old.

Automation = Productive Meetings

A lot of the time, when meetings are completed the result is a handful of action items that usually involve following-up and nagging people. What if we told you this wasn’t a necessary part of your job? There are plenty of automation tools out there that can help you accomplish this cumbersome aspect of your organization’s processes.

Think no more emails, no more following up, no more tracking down random people throughout your organization. By teaching a tool like this how your business is structured and what your goals are, you are enabling it to learn how you want things done and what your goals are. By automating your workflow, those responsibility check-ins that we call meetings will be more focused and ultimately provide better outcomes. Say goodbye to feeling like you’re working with grown children and hello to strategic and productive meetings.

Any other ideas on how to eliminate useless meetings? We’re all ears. Chat with us here.