January 14, 2016
4 ways to make your next meeting more productive
*PLEASE NOTE – DropTask is now Ayoa – an all-in-one tool for idea generation and collaboration, that goes beyond traditional task management. Discover Ayoa and achieve your best work.*
You’re probably familiar with phrases such as “not enough hours in a day” or “too much to do and not enough time”. With the majority of us having up to 150 individual tasks, meetings and emails to take care of at any given time, it’s no surprise we find ourselves short of time when getting things done.
And for many, meetings are one of the action items that dominate business life. According to the National Statistics Council, 37% of employee time is spent in meetings. Other data indicates that 11 million business meetings take place each and every day.
However, the benefits of bringing people together to discuss a specific topic can be lost through disorganization and lack of structure – with people leaving meetings frustrated, confused or overwhelmed. That’s why we’ve got 4 ways to make your next meeting more efficient and productive…
1. Plan ahead
Time can be wasted by setting out what will be discussed during a meeting – as part of the meeting itself! If you’ve got 6 people in a meeting and the first 10 minutes is spent discussing what will be covered, that’s 60 minutes of lost working time that you’ll never get back. Avoid this by compiling your agenda and sharing it with attendees prior to the meeting. Everyone will then understand the purpose of the meeting including the details of what will be covered.
2. Set priorities
Conversations can soon escalate and run off topic – leaving you short of time to discuss everything on the agenda. Avoid having to schedule additional meetings just to cover missed topics by prioritizing. It’s simple – just decide which topics are most important and cover these first so if you do run out of time, anything of low importance can be left until next time.
3. Take Action
After your meeting you’ll likely have a number of next steps and action items. However, with a lot of information to take on board, some smaller tasks may slip your mind. By having DropTask open during your meeting, you’ll be able to quickly create new tasks – ensuring all grounds are covered and nothing’s forgotten about. By keeping everything in DropTask, you’ll even save time by not having to record your minutes!
4. Ask yourself, “do I really need a meeting?”
Quite often, topics covered in a meeting don’t need to be communicated face-to-face. If you’re simply rolling off a list of to-dos or are after a quick status update, try not to interrupt your teams’ workflow and use DropTask instead. With a central place for your team to engage in conversation and monitor progress, you can withhold meetings for things which are easier to communicate in person, or for higher level discussions on strategy and business goals.
Make counter-productive meetings a thing of the past – sign up to DropTask for free today at www.droptask.com/signup.
Are you already using DropTask to manage your meetings? Leave us a comment below and let us know how you’re using it!