Do you work in an office? Do you know that the average American office worker spends an average of five hours a week in a meeting? According to goaskcody.com, if you’re a manager, your meeting calendar is even more packed, you’re spending 12-14 hours a week in meetings. So before you agree to another meeting, ask yourself these three questions to see if you can at least re-schedule it, if not bump it from your calendar.
- Do you have all the information?
Really, do you have everything you need to know in order to hold this meeting? Do you have an agenda for what you want to cover, and can you send it to the attendees? If you’re struggling to put an agenda together, it’s likely that you don’t totally understand what you want to get out of the meeting. If you answer no to this, definitely cancel, and seriously consider not rescheduling until you feel like you have all the pertinent details.
- Are you prepared?
There is no bigger waste of time than getting a group of people together who haven’t done their homework or research so the topic at hand can be discussed. If it’s a meeting to discuss who is taking ownership on a particular task or project, make sure you know the entire scope of the project so that there isn’t disagreement about the size of the job and therefore who should take ownership. This is the kind of meeting that leads to another meeting because no one could come to an agreement. Sending out an agenda in advance of the meeting helps to prevent meetings devolving into this kind of chaos. Friendly suggestion? Get in the habit of creating and sending an agenda in advance of each meeting you call.
- Is this the right time?
There is a natural progression of projects or general business that dictates when it makes sense to call a meeting. Sometimes there is a key milestone that you need to reach as a team before you get everyone together to discuss a project. Other times, the sands are shifting and there are so many moving pieces that you have to get together just to get a status on what everyone is working on. What you want to avoid is putting a meeting on the calendar or agreeing to a meeting that doesn’t make sense to have because you’re all waiting for something bigger to happen, or waiting for a critical piece of the project to fall into place. Avoid meeting “group think.” Meaning, no one has thought about where you all are at in the timeline, but it everyone agreed that it just seemed like a good idea to get together.
Admittedly, there are times when it’s just nice to sit down and connect with a colleague, especially if it’s been awhile. That is generally time well spent. However, there are likely other meetings during your week that you can avoid entirely if you can’t answer yes to the three questions above. Ask yourself these 3 questions the next time you’re invited to a meeting, or are tempted to call a meeting. You might be surprised at how much of your week you can get back!