In today’s fast-paced work environment, online meetings have become a staple. However, spending too much time in meetings can be counterproductive. Here are ten ways to reduce the amount of time you spend in online meetings, mixing behavioural changes with the use of relevant meeting tools.
Set clear agendas
Before scheduling a meeting, ensure there is a clear agenda. This helps keep the meeting focused and efficient. Tools like Meeting Canary can help you create and share agendas easily.
Use AI-powered meeting apps
Leverage meeting apps that use AI to record and summarise meetings. Applications like Otter.ai and Meeting Canary can transcribe and summarise discussions, allowing you to review key points without attending every meeting.
Implement a ‘No Meeting’ day
Designate one day a week as a ‘No Meeting’ day. This gives everyone uninterrupted time to focus on their work. Encourage your team to respect this rule.
Evaluate the necessity of each meeting
Before accepting a meeting invite, ask yourself if the meeting is truly necessary. Could the information be shared via email or a quick chat instead?
Set time limits
Keep meetings short and to the point. Set a maximum time limit for meetings, such as 30 minutes, to ensure they stay focused. Or try just reducing all meeting lengths by say 10% so instead of a 30 minute meeting try a 27 minute one – do this in all meetings and you’ll buy back hours of time, if this works, do it again!
Use collaboration tools
Utilise collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack to share updates and collaborate in real-time. This can reduce the need for frequent meetings. Meeting Canary places all your meeting summaries and action points in your own Teams tenant – keeping your data ultra secure – however Meeting Canary also automates reminders for meetings in a series – so colleagues are told about actions that need, mmm actioning, again all done within Teams so it’s secure.
Encourage asynchronous communication
Promote the use of asynchronous communication methods, such as recorded video messages or detailed emails, to share information without the need for a live meeting.
Create personal meeting guidelines
Develop personal guidelines for deciding whether to attend a meeting. For example, if the meeting doesn’t have a clear agenda or if your presence isn’t crucial, consider skipping it.
Delegate meeting attendance
If possible, delegate meeting attendance to a team member who can take notes and share a summary with you. This allows you to stay informed without attending every meeting.
Review and optimise meeting practices
Regularly review your meeting practices and seek feedback from your team. Use this feedback to optimise and reduce unnecessary meetings. Meeting Canary provides post meeting feedback which is configurable – so you can ensure that your team gets the chance to feedback to you what they want and how best the team can work together.
By implementing these strategies and leveraging tools like Meeting Canary and other applications that record and summarise meetings, you can significantly reduce the amount of time you spend in online meetings and increase your productivity.