Take a Time-Out and Re-Think Your Meetings
How long do your team meetings last? Do you have an hour set aside for a meeting, but only get halfway through the agenda before the hour is up? You’re not alone. The Babylonians came up with the idea of an “hour,” but it’s likely that they didn’t have business meetings in the 21st century in mind at the time. An hour is a nice round number, but that’s about all it has going for it as a standard amount of time for gatherings. It’s time to take a step back, rethink your meetings, and see if you can get more done in shorter amounts of time.
Adjusting your meeting time:
Parkinson’s Law says that “work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” This means that if we give ourselves an hour for every meeting, the meeting will take the whole hour, even if we could have gotten the same results in less than an hour. So, one possible solution is to change how long meetings are based on what’s on the agenda. Sometimes 60 minutes is needed, but other times they can be cut down by a lot. This way, everyone can make the most of the time they have without having to spend extra hours or days on other things.
It might also be a good idea to set a shorter time limit for all meetings, like 30 or 45 minutes. This makes sure that everyone stays on task and keeps the conversation from getting off track (which often happens when there are no boundaries). Also, cutting meetings short can give you more room in your schedule so you can focus on other tasks or just give yourself some much-needed time to relax. You can find more details about the beniefts in this video.
Setting up Shorter Meetings:
One way to make sure that team meetings get more done is to have a few shorter ones throughout the week instead of one long one. This lets everyone know what’s going on without having to have long conversations or debates about things that could be easily talked about in an email or chat thread. This keeps everyone up-to-date and informed, and it also makes it easier for people to work together because they don’t feel like they missed out on important details because they weren’t there for long conversations.You can find more details about the benefits of Mastering Time Management: Productivity Tips and Hacks for Increased Productivity
When it comes down to it, planning team meetings should always be based on how well they work. Whether that means changing the length of meetings based on what’s on the agenda or giving everyone the same amount of time for each one, every minute counts when you’re trying to get things done quickly and well. So, take a step back and rethink how your team organises business meetings. You might be surprised at how much more productive you become!
