Everyone talks about time and how fast it seems to go by at this time of year. We're always amazed at the passing of another year. How time "flew" by and how many things we didn't accomplish.
I read this interesting article this morning on the HBR blog about managing meeting times.
I can certainly sympathize with the trouble of back to back meetings, as we all can. Some days are worse than others but one of the biggest challenges in business is how to manage your own time as well as the time of others on your team.
The suggestion Professor Silverman makes to change meetings to 50 minutes instead of 60 is interesting. Obviously, this creates a 10 minute window of opportunity to not only get to your next meeting, check your voice mail and email.
At first blush, this sounds like a great idea. I'm all for creating more efficiency and trying to manage your day better.
But I wonder, does this help or does this create even more angst as you see more problems, more work projects and more future appointments in between meetings when you often can not take the time to solve the problem immediately, although it may demand your immediate attention. This sometimes means that people then miss the next meeting to care for the "more urgent" matter they just learned of in their in-box.
In fast moving business settings it might be more advantageous to limit the amount of people attending all day meetings to only the people you need in attendance. Often too many unnecessary people are in long, non-productive meetings.
As a manger, my suggestion would be to know your teams schedule and understand who is going to what meetings. Assign the correct people to the meetings they can either most learn from or most add to. This will free up the rest of the team to keep the actual work moving forward, especially when working for clients.
One of the comments from this blog worried how implementing this 50 minute rule would impact client meetings. I agree this is a huge consideration. From not starting on time to running late, clients expect their vendors to be at their beck and call.
One of the best solutions is to have the meeting as choreographed as possible. Let folks know what you want from them up front, do you need questions answered? Then provide the questions prior to the meeting. Do you need a decision made? Clearly outline the decision you need and the implications if you don't get a decision in that meetings. What information will be covered. Again, only invite people who add value to the meeting. Clients rarely want folks in a meeting from your side that are not participating, so don't include them.
At the end of the day, you need to manage your time, your meetings and your whole day. Of course things come up that may seem beyond your control. All you can do is manage the 24 hours of each day. Don't overbook, don't over lap meetings, this will only add more frustration to your day, and not allow you to give your full attention to each meeting you attend. Block out time in your day to handle the daily influx of email and phone calls. Most importantly, be present in each meeting you do participate in. Don't check your email incessantly, don't start thinking about the next meeting or what other problems are going on while you're away from your office. Be there, be attentive, ask and answer the questions necessary and move on to the next thing.
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