How often do you start your day with good intentions, then look at your diary to see it’s rammed with meetings?
You attend them and wonder why you’re on half of them. One meeting runs into the next. Then the next one.
Before you know it, it’s the end of the day and you’ve not done any work that you needed to, because you’ve been back to back with meetings and serving other people’s agendas.
Sound familiar?
Here are 5 things you can do to improve your schedule and free up your time.
1) Reduce the times of your meetings
Why does everyone always seem to book an hour for meetings?! Before any meeting hits your diary, ask yourself how long you need. Does it also need to start on the hour?
Some people find starting a meeting, past the hour, like 14:20, implies that you’re on a tight schedule and attendees are more likely to be mindful of your time!
2) Only attend vital meetings that have a clear agenda
Do you really need to be at all these meetings? If so, ask attendees for a clear agenda and objective of what they wish to get out of it and what they need from you. Also, do you need to be at all of these meetings?
3) Opt to have online meetings over in person
You can get a lot of value from face-to-face meetings, however, they can also be huge time zappers and often run over the allotted time.
Not to mention the extra time it takes travelling to and from these meetings. Ask yourself what meetings you must attend in person.
4) Group your meetings into similar categories
To streamline your meetings and optimise productivity, try grouping your meetings into two sets. 1) Creative meetings and 2) logical thinking meetings. Try booking these meetings at the times of the day where you are most creative or logical and group them.
5) Don’t commit too far ahead
Some people book meetings weeks or months in advance. Then it comes to that time and it’s either not a priority or those meetings are less relevant.
You could try keeping your dairy clear until nearer the time or not 100% confirming the meeting until nearer the time.
Diaries can be a great source of productivity or a big drain on your time.
Drop Emilia a note (emilia@emiliapowell.co.uk) to see how you can improve your dairy and schedule.