When it gets really bad, I may be in as many as 15 different meetings in a single day. When it gets really, really bad, most of those meetings are about different things and I’m forced to switch contexts nearly every 30 minutes.
Throughout the fluctuations of a given year, I’d say I average around 7 meetings per day. That’s about 30 per week, 120 per month, 1,200 per year if you factor in some sweet, sweet vacation time. I bet you that since I first entered the workforce, I’ve spent more waking hours in meetings than just about any other setting.
Some meetings are the awesome kind where you come away feeling energized and ready to take on any challenge. Some are the soul crushing kind where you come away thinking about the 30 minutes of your life you just lost and will never get back.
I want to have the first kind of meeting. I think it can be done.
The Calendar Cleanse
Over the past few years, I’ve gotten into the habit of performing a monthly calendar cleanse. The cleanse is pretty simple. I look at every meeting in my calendar and ask myself these two questions:
- Do I add value to this meeting?
- Do I get value from this meeting?
If the answer is “no” to both of these questions, I decline or delete the meeting. This…
