Nibletz Staff
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How much of your day do you spend in meetings? How many of those meetings are actually meaningful? Having too many meetings is one of the biggest productivity drains your business could face, so how can you change that? Meetings will always be important, but the way you conduct them could have a completely different meaning to your business. Read some of the following suggestions on how you can make your meetings more productive.
Cut them down
Take a long, hard look at your calendar. How many of the meetings that fill it are actually necessary? You could be saving a lot of time and energy by doing a meeting audit and working out which meetings need to go. Ask yourself some of the following questions:
- Does this meeting have to happen every week?
- Is this meeting too long?
- What does this meeting achieve that requires me to keep in in my calendar?
This is a simple exercise you should perform by going through each appointment in your calendar. You could easily cancel one or two a week or change them to fortnightly or monthly meetings to help you free up time for getting on with your work.
Always have an agenda
If your meeting doesn’t have enough substance to fill an agenda, then why are you having it? You might have the time to enjoy an hour-long talking shop, but your colleagues don’t. It’s important to have a meeting agenda to help set a direction for the meeting as well as make sure that everything that needs to be covered is discussed at the meeting. If you can’t find enough agenda items, shorten or cancel the meeting until there’s more to be brought to the table. Your colleagues will thank you for it.
Get the right technology in place
Nothing is more frustrating than sitting in a meeting waiting for the conference call line to connect or watching someone struggle to work the video calling function. Technology can be a vital tool for hosting productive meetings, so it’s worth investing in the right products to help you benefit from the latest innovations. The Microsoft Surface Hub Partner is one of the most talked-about pieces of meeting technology that’s transforming how meetings work. If you can get technology to engage and inspire your team to work hard, you’ll be in for far more productive meetings.
Keep them to one day of the week
An interesting meeting technique is to only schedule meetings on a select day of the week. This means that all of your meetings will take place in one day, leaving your other four days to get on with everything else you need to do. It’s a great concept and can help make meetings more meaningful, knowing there’s only one day of the week they can be held on. Encouraging this behavior across your business could spark a real difference in the productivity of your workforce.
Changing the culture of meetings in the workplace is one way you can empower your employees and help them to do their best work. A busy calendar doesn’t necessarily reflect how hard you’re working, so cutting down those unnecessary meetings could be just what you need to help you and your team get things done.
