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Multitasking Kills Meetings – 6 Tips for More Productive Meetings

tips for more productive meetings

Tips for getting the most out of meetings – quickly – so you can get back to work.

I can’t think of anyone who really likes meetings, except for those annoying folks who like to sound off in front on an audience. Plus, do we really NEED those donuts?

One reason many meetings are horrible: half of the participants aren’t fully “there.” Someone is texting to figure out car pooling their kids to soccer practice. Someone else is checking email. People are horrible multitaskers (and even your multifunction printer only prints one job at a time). Take a hint from your copier – perform many tasks, but only perform one task at a time. To get the most of meetings, this is an important idea to take and use – focus on the meeting.

Donuts or not, you do have to meet with the people you work with, at least once in a while, to be sure you’re all pointed in the right direction. When you do have to meet, make the meeting as efficient as possible.

Here are a few common sense ideas and tips for more productive meetings to use to get together, get focused, and then get it done.

1. No Cell Phone Zone

There are few things in (work) life more annoying than being in the middle of making a point and noticing that two of your fellow meeting participants are responding to an email on their phones. Someone always forgets to turn their ringer off. And don’t even get me started on alert sounds – for email, Facebook, Pinterest, text . . . it’s annoying.

Park the phones at the door. Have a basket there for that purpose. Or a table – have fun stacking them into a pyramid. Just keep them out of your hands during a meeting. It’s too easy to become distracted.

2. Plan

Have a purpose for the meeting. Is it brainstorming? Sharing a company goal or direction? A decision-meeting? Intelligence-gathering with a potential customer (or vendor)?

  • Know what the purpose and goals of the meeting are
  • Send invites in enough time to make sure that the key individuals attend and include all location and/or dial-in/log-in information
  • Share an agenda ahead of time to focus the conversation

3. Invitation Only

If there’s one thing worse than being in a poorly-run meeting; it’s being in a poorly-run meeting that you don’t need to be a part of. Think carefully about who needs to be in the meeting – streamline the invitation list as much as possible so that you’re not wasting anyone’s time.

4. Time

Start and end on time. If a key participant is running slightly late, wait. Otherwise, get started. Be sure to schedule enough time to accomplish your meeting’s goals, which will allow you to end on time – or even early.

5. Don’t Go Off the Rails

Don’t allow a rehash of previous meetings – or, even worse, general belly-aching about previous decisions – throw your meeting off track. Recap relevant previous decisions and then stick to your agenda. And don’t let someone hijack the meeting for their own personal agenda. Stay in charge and on track. If someone keeps bringing up an unrelated topic, set an action item to meet separately on the topic.

6. That’s a Wrap

Decide on action items, individuals responsible, and deadlines. Share notes in a follow up email – and the action items again.

If it’s a nice day, consider a walking meeting. Steve Jobs was a fan of walking meetings. Getting up and moving stimulates creativity, and it’s good for you to move too. I’ve found two interesting articles about walking meetings:

  1. 7 Powerful Reasons to Take Your Next Meeting for a Walk
  2. How to Do Walking Meetings Right

Just make sure you don’t destroy the healthy benefits by walking to Baskin-Robbins.

I know these tips for more productive meetings are common sense, but we’ve all been in bad meetings. Stay focused. Stop multitasking in meetings and you’ll be more productive, save time, and avoid meetings that suck your energy away like a vampire.

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Topics: Productivity Tips and Tools