Meeting too Much?

I have been feeling recently like my calendar is bursting with meetings, including a standing 8:30 meeting Tuesday THRU Friday each week. Sometimes I feel like, “what gives!?” When I look at my calendar and compare it to my list of deliverables, I see few windows in my calendar to produce those deliverables! I read a LinkedIn article last night titled “YOU are the Cause of Meeting Mania. 14 Ways to Stop it!”

There are times when a chain of 14 e-mails could more easily have been hashed out in a meeting, but there are also many occasions when we spend our time in meetings and later ask ourselves, “did I really need to be in that meeting?” Well, here are some of the LinkedIn article author’s points to help you decide whether you really did need to be in that meeting…

Is there an agenda associated with the meeting notice? If not and your role in the meeting is unclear, as for an agenda, and if needed, be forward and ask whether your role is vital.

If a meeting is scheduled for a date/time that has you hard-pressed to attend, don’t be afraid to propose a new time.

If a meeting notice comes across that is also sent to others in your organization or department, decide as a group whose attendance is most critical, and just sent that person.

If you are scheduling the meeting, ask yourself whether the content can be covered better through e-mail, and if so, get to e-mailing!

Rethink if a recurring meeting needs to be weekly. Consider scheduling it biweekly or monthly if there’s not enough project activity to warrant weekly meetings.

Send the meeting organizer the topics you’d like to have covered so that the meeting will certainly make use of your time.