How many of you has this happened to? You are in a meeting that is supposed to end at the top of the hour and half way through a significant number of active participants excuse themselves to go to another meeting.
The average worker spends at least 3 hours a week in meetings, with 30% of workers reporting that they spend over 5 hours per week in meetings. 1
For many of us, our calendars are filled with blocks on top of block of requests to leverage your time. However, many of us also forget the purpose of meeting: To align on objectives, generate actionable and owned next steps, and overall make progress. Your time is the most valuable thing you have to offer, it is very important that you are using it in the best ways you possibly can; agressively prioritizing and reprioritizing.
Know why you are going to a meeting
We end up attending a significant number of meetings where the organizer has not provided any significant details, specifically things like purpose or objectives. It is very important that you as an attendee know what the intention of you being there is. From whether you are required or optional to role you have and the information you are going to be expected to provide. If you don’t have the answers to these questions, be comfortable is continuing to ask and even go as far as not accepting the invite.
Acknowledge when a meeting isn’t going as planned or just that your part is done
Best laid intentions, am I right? Even with the most structured meeting, when a group of people get together there is always a possibility of conversation to stray from the intent. Just because you show up to a meeting, doesn’t mean you have to stay through the whole thing. You should be constantly evaluating value; if your part is done or the conversation has taken a turn that you can’t provide or receive value from, it is okay to leave.
When it is going good, don’t just stop
Paraphrazing Newton’s first law of motion (inertia):
A body in motion, stay in motion. A body at rest, stays at rest. Unless acted upon by a force
If you are having a great meeting, making great progress, to leave just because another meeting notification popped up on your computer doesn’t universally make sense. Why kill all the momentum on that value generation. Sure if your next meeting is with the CEO, you are less likely to reprioritize that, but blind allegiance to your calendar is not likely allowing you to make the best decision about where your time is best spent.
For many of us, it seems like we have two full-time jobs; the day of meetings and the day of work. It is very important that the most is made of the time available and that sometimes plans can, or even should, change. Knowing what you are getting yourself into and when it is really appropriate to move on to the next thing is what can shift from feelings of wasting of time to feelings of accomplishment.