You are ready to start your week.
You are motivated to pursue your goals.
You are rested and wake up early to get a head start.
Then, you look at your calendar and realize that most of your week is already overrun by appointments. The work week hasn’t even begun, and the majority of your time is already taken.
You ask, “Who scheduled all of these meetings?”
Is Your Week Already Booked?
Before you start your day, look at your calendar. Does it look like a Tetris board, nearly completely covered with overlapping appointments in various colors?
Take a quick assessment: how many hours of meetings do you have scheduled?
Then, ask yourself, “When am I going to get my own work done?”
Here are some things to consider about the many meetings cluttering your calendar:
- How many meetings are standing meetings? Avoid meetings that repeat no matter their status or whether there is an update.
- How many of them are actually productive? Ensure they have an actual purpose, advance agenda, and work to be performed.
- How many meetings are too long? Consider cutting their scheduled duration in half.
- Which should be conversations? Some of your meetings would be better handled by having a one-on-one conversation instead of summoning a group into a conference room.
- Which meetings do you need to decline? Just because you received a meeting invite doesn’t mean you have to drop all your priorities to attend. Decline the ones that you cannot or should not attend.
- Do you have any meetings for your own work? Beware letting your calendar be overrun with everyone else’s priorities before you take time for your own. Schedule meetings with your own tasks to ensure you get them done.
Take Back Your Calendar
You won’t get your work done if you are sitting in meetings all week-long.
Resist repeating meetings and decline ones that you shouldn’t be spending time on. Reduce the duration of meetings that you must attend.
Own your own time, and get your most important priorities on your calendar before those pesky meetings fill it up.
Question: How many hours of your week are taken up by meetings? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Left this stat out… the average employee attends 62 meetings a month!
How many do you?
We advise our clients to build in one “buffer day” per week. A day when they work on their business and they are perhaps office based.
Because meeting are viewed as “normal”, they are often less challenged. Even the length of meetings seem to be set as an hour for many. Something a 15 minute meeting is all you need. Also if you have regular conversations on the various activities, then there may be no need to have a meeting.
Craig, happened to see the post now! half way thru the week and I still have 7 on my calendar. 3 of which is schedule by me and rest I just get sucked into which doesn’t make sense to me unless there is an heads up from the adjacent team on the work completion.
Declining a meeting requet defnitely pulls the trigger for us and we get termed as being arrogant. Truly said, we hardly can make time for ourselves.
Phillippa also did mention the best part to have a buffer, but it hardly does affect us in a good way. Sounds sweet, but difficult to implement.
Nice info you have written . Something a 15 minute meeting is all you need. Also if you have regular conversations on the various activities, then there may be no need to have a meeting.