There’s one fact that transcends cultures and industries: people hate meetings. But how exactly did this avenue for collaboration, creativity, and productivity become such a sore spot? It all started with the downfall of productive meetings.
We associate meetings with good project management, leading to a psychological bias that longer, frequent meetings are good. However, simple economics points out the flaw of this rationale. When we have something good, we reach a point where the benefits obtained from having more of it slowly tapers off — like eating ice cream till you get a stomach ache. More meeting time means less time for focused, creative work for everyone on the team. To make matters worse, once we accept that meetings are long, we don’t treat time as a precious commodity. Agendas are abandoned and a meeting is scheduled to cover what should have been accomplished in the first place.
Productive meetings can only come with focus and purpose. This can be a group effort where everyone comes prepared, sticks to the agenda and kindly brushes away irrelevant points. I know, it’s easier said than done. A great way to start this is by using productivity tools. Workplace time-tracking is what we at Timeqube do best. A Timeqube is unobtrusive, tapping into behavioral patterns to indicate the passing of time with colors. It’s the perfect way to stay on-track and finally end meetings on time.
The world around us is only getting more competitive and productive meetings are an untapped source of innovation and efficient teamwork. It’s time for simple, subtle time-awareness.
