Everything has it’s time. We have productive and unproductive hours. I accept that now. I am also slowly managing to accept when I don’t accomplish what I had planned. But I am having quite a hard time accepting when I feel like my time is wasted by the hands of others.
I mean, who likes that?
We don’t like waiting in line forever when we just want to pay for a few items. We don’t like traffic jams because we want to get home. We also don’t like to be surveyed on the phone, because we want to continue doing what we did before we accidentally picked up the phone.
And I don’t appreciate sitting through meetings when half of the agenda remains untouched because we lost track of time. Have you ever been too late to work although you accidentally woke up 15 minutes too early? Same effect. If everyone thinks, they have plenty of time they will take more than they should.
That is why I am a fan of one-on-one meetings with very few objectives and on a tight schedule. You can cut out all the fluff and come to a satisfying end because everyone remains aware of the time. You might not solve all problems in short meetings, but both of you have time to address all of them. If needed, you can then meet the next day again and thus give everyone 24 hours to come up with new ideas.
So if you cannot avoid meeting in a larger group then try scheduling the meeting for just half the time you think you should. Just try it. People will complain. But people will save time.
You will save time. Time you can spend on your terms.
Photo: joiseyshowaa. This was Quick Tip No 62.