They make your work slow and unproductive: Superfluous meetings. These meetings are often planned inefficiently by inviting the entire distribution list for the project. While work piles up on your desk, you spend your time during the meeting and get annoyed by endless discussions that drag on like chewing gum. In this article, we have put together a few tips for you on how you can avoid meeting overload in future.
Time management is the neuralgic point in leadership. You have all the strings of a project in your hand, have to keep an overview and always be exactly where things are going wrong. This makes it all the more important that you identify the time wasters in your day-to-day work, and these are often meetings. Group meetings undoubtedly have considerable advantages. They enable a direct exchange on relevant issues, prevent misunderstandings and make obstacles visible at an early stage.
The other side of the coin: a study has shown that managers spend an average of 7,000 hours a year in conferences. What could you do with this time as an alternative? The solution: You need to define for yourself which meetings are actually important and efficient and which meetings only deserve a click on the cancel button.
Perhaps you have already noticed it yourself: Many employees and managers need a lot of time to recover after an unproductive meeting. The term meeting recovery syndrome was coined back in the 1970s by two psychologists who investigated the fact that it is not only the participants themselves who are kept from doing their work, but also colleagues who later experience the frustration. Inefficient meetings even have a negative effect afterwards. Occupational psychologists have even discovered that people who spend an above-average amount of time in meetings are sick more often.
At this point, take a look at your diary, call up all meeting requests for the coming days and check them for the following questions:
Check the agenda for each of your appointments: Does it actually contain items that are relevant to you and justify the time you spend in the meeting? If the meeting is more likely to be held under the heading "Just getting together", then you can shine with your absence.
Canceling meetings is also a personal challenge. One of the most common reasons for attending unnecessary meetings is the so-called FOMO - Fear of Missing Out. You worry about what your colleagues will say or fear that you will no longer be on the list of attendees for important meetings in the future. The sense of duty to accept an invitation is deeply rooted in people. This attitude prevents you from turning down meeting invitations and wasting your time out of politeness instead. Free yourself from the attitude that meetings should not take place without you. Clear communication also helps here: when you cancel, briefly explain the reasons for doing so and take the time to concentrate on working efficiently instead. Your work-life balance will thank you for it.
We all know about inefficient meetings and the time lost as a result. We are happy to help you organize and design these meetings efficiently.