Do you know what percentage of your typical working week is spent in regular meetings?
“In a world where we’re drowning in meetings, we barely have time to push our actual work forward.”
Do you ever feel like that?
It’s from a post I saw on LinkedIn recently. The follow-on comment was:
“Our ability to make our meetings productive defines how effective we are.“
What do you think?
To me it’s a pessimistic outlook as it seems to presume that all the meetings are necessary.
The stark reality is this: if a meeting is unproductive, it can be made more productive or it can be cancelled.
Work bottom up. Which meetings are necessary? Identify those and cancel the rest.
That will instantly make you more productive.
Then you can consider how to make the remaining meetings more productive, e.g., having (and disseminating) a clear agenda, having a defined end time, limiting those who love the sound of their own voices, capturing decisions, defining follow-on actions, etc.
Productivity does not need to be viewed as simply doing more and doing it better. Good productivity is about getting more of the important stuff done without working more.
Another comment I saw on LinkedIn this week was someone saying that his:
“challenge is to remember that there is a difference between productivity and tackling a to-do list.”
He’s spot on.
If a to-do list has only trivial stuff on it, is that productivity?
If you’re distracted from your to-do list, is that productivity?
If you work on the to-do list without intensity, is that productivity?
Consistent and optimal productivity is impossible. For one simple reason. Because we’re all human. Instead, it’s about steady progress.
Go take that next step- even if it’s small one!
PS: Sign up here to get my free ebook – “Get Off The Hamster Wheel: The Smart Small Business Owner’s Productivity Bible“. You’ll read it in less than 15 minutes!