Let’s face it: We’ve all lost hours of our lives to unproductive meetings. We’ve fallen victim to the endless PowerPoints, speakers who drone on forever, and precious minutes lost to Smalltalk. During the lockdown, all those meetings shifted to Zoom, which only made them feel less impactful.
Meetings have gotten a bad reputation in office culture, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be useful. You can often get more done more quickly in a well-organized meeting than you can over a lengthy email thread.
They also allow you to pick up on body language and tone of voice — cues we miss in writing. The trick is to structure your meetings so that they’re a productive use of everyone’s time. This means avoiding the cardinal sins that make people dread meetings in the first place.
Here are six key meeting mistakes that are costing you precious time and money:
1. Failing to create a meeting agenda
One reason so many meetings lack focus is that managers don’t take the time to create a meeting agenda. As a result, participants often don’t know the true purpose of the meeting before they show up. They can’t prepare questions or ideas beforehand. The discussion lacks focus, and people walk away without a clear idea of what’s expected of them.
Taking a few minutes to create an agenda beforehand will save everyone time and make your meeting more productive. Your agenda doesn’t have to be anything fancy. It can simply include a brief outline of talking points, action items, or decisions that need to be made. You can also include who is responsible for which items and how much time to allot to each topic.
2. Scheduling unnecessary recurring weekly meetings
Just 11 percent of workers say all their meetings are productive. That means that 89 percent of us are wasting at least some time in meetings. While some meetings (such as one-on-ones and team meetings) can be scheduled on a recurring weekly basis, other meetings and project check-ins can be moved to a biweekly – or even, monthly – cadence. Consider surveying your team on the meeting cadence and day that works for them.
3. Scheduling meetings in one-hour blocks
There is a reason so many meetings last an hour: Most people’s calendars schedule events in one-hour blocks by default. Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time allotted, which is why meetings sometimes seem to drag on. But there’s no rule that says meetings can’t be 20, 30, or 45 minutes long. If you only block off 30 minutes, there’s a good chance you can wrap up the discussion in that timeframe.
Before you schedule your next meeting, ask yourself how much time it should really take. If you’ve created a meeting agenda, it should be easy to estimate. You can also try a stand-up meeting to move things along. Participants are much less likely to waste time when everyone is standing rather than sitting comfortably at a table.
4. Inviting too many participants
Another mistake that leads to less productive meetings is inviting too many people. This creates two problems. The first problem is that it pulls people away from their work when it’s not strictly necessary. It also makes invitees feel compelled to talk, even if they have nothing to add to the discussion. This can make a short meeting drag on longer than it has to.
Before you send out your next meeting invite, ask yourself whether each invitee can or should be an active participant. If someone’s input isn’t needed or they aren’t in a position to contribute, they don’t necessarily need to be present. Sending out meeting minutes or an email update effectively brings them up to speed without wasting their time.
Consider Reading: Five Outstanding Benefits of Modern Digital Devices for Business Meetings
5. Not batching your meetings
Everyone has had those days where nothing seems to get done. Usually, it’s the days you spend hours in meetings and can’t get any productive work done in between. It’s not your imagination. Research shows that it takes 23 minutes to get back on task after an interruption. If you have an hour between meetings, you might get 30 minutes of good work done before your next meeting.
One way around this is to “batch” your meetings. Try to schedule as many meetings back to back as possible to free up more time before and after. You can try to make one day each week a meeting-free day. Or you can block off time on your calendar each day for deep work.
6. Not assigning action items
We’ve all had the experience of sitting through a long meeting and emerging afterward wondering what it accomplished. These are the meetings where participants couldn’t reach any decision, and attendees were left without any clear direction. Worse, there may be another meeting scheduled to pick up the discussion where you left off. Don’t let this happen again!
If you call a meeting, it’s your job to make the most of it. Ideally, this means that participants leave with a clear understanding of the next steps. This could be a goal they’re working toward or a list of action items.
Don’t just assume that someone knows what they’re being tasked with. List out the action items during the meeting, and send these out to the group afterward. This wraps the meeting up nicely, brings clarity, and creates accountability. You can even schedule automated follow-ups to ensure that attendees are completing their tasks.
Meetings might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they still have a time and a place. They’re only a waste of time when they’re run poorly. The secret is to do away with unnecessary meetings and ensure that those you do hold are purposeful and well-organized. This will allow your team to accomplish more and derive greater satisfaction from their work.
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