Tuesday, January 17, 2006

I'm not a fan of meetings

Just about everyone has them where they work. Some folks get off easy with one a month or maybe once a quarter (like the wife) whereas we have them several times a week. Group meetings, team meetings, policy meetings, etc. Some weeks it feels like I spend 50% of my time in a meeting or preparing for a meeting. (We once has a meeting to plan our presentation at a pre-meeting discussion). Most meetings can be skipped - or at least really shortened. An agenda is necessary. Whoever is running the meeting needs to be capable of keeping control and sticking to the agenda. Otherwise the meeting gets out of control and becomes a time-sucking abyss.

Thing1 sent me a link to some UK researchers who have discovered that:

    "We propose that despite the fact that meetings may help to achieve work-related goals, having too many meetings and spending too much time in meetings per day may have negative effects on the individual."


Go and read the whole thing.

If you have to have a meeting make it early in the day and keep it moving. Don't waste time.

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