Mastering Your Managerial Role: Escape the Meetings Trap

Too many people spend their whole day in meetings.

Which meetings are providing value to your day? Are the meetings in your calendar urgent, or can they be pushed out?

We all struggle to find ways to manage our calendars effectively. The meetings continue to flow in and we cannot keep up with the workload. Since the pandemic, we feel more glued to our computers than ever before. We became comfortable with the whole, “block time in my calendar” concept. The problem is, if you’re not managing what’s coming in, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Ask yourself, how many back to back meetings do you have in a day? Do you have time to eat during that day? What about taking a sip of water or making yourself a cup of tea? Meetings have become so ingrained in our daily work, we feel compelled to tell our team members we are stepping away from the screen to take a, “bio break.”

How do we get out of this back to back meeting trap? Some have suggested to focus on capping the number of meetings you have in a day. Others feel they should just hire an Executive Assistant to manage their calendar. While those may seem like probable solutions, you’ll run into the same issue again if you’re not fixing the problem.

You need to set boundaries.

Yes, the statement is that simple. The work behind it, not so much.

Let’s look into how we could begin fixing this problem:

1) Run manual analytics on your calendar.

• What days of the week do you have meetings?

• How many meetings are you having per day?

• How many hours are you spending in meetings per day?

• Which days of the week seem to be the heaviest in meetings?

• Log who you spend your reoccurring meetings with.

• What meetings do you have in your calendar that pertain to projects?

• Which meetings give you energy? Which meetings drain you of your energy?

2) With the information above, begin to calculate the time, days and people you connect with. Create categories or themes for the type of meetings you have.

• Categories: Days of the Week - Number of meetings, or number of hours per day.

• Themes: Project Name - Frequency of meeting, time in meeting, productive (yes or no).

• People: How many meetings do I have with them in 1) a week; 2) in a month. Can these be consolidated into one meeting weekly?

Ask yourself, how did you feel about these meetings? Were you engaged? Were you enjoying every minute of the meeting? Did it feel productive? Did you come out pumped and ready to tackle the work ahead of you? Or, did you drift off into other work because the meeting was pointless and had nothing to do with your involvement/decision making?

3) Once you’ve captured the above, begin to consolidate, streamline and delegate.

• Consolidate: Can you meet with that individual 1x per week and discuss everything in a 60 minute meeting vs having 4-5 30 minute meetings on various topics?

• Streamline: Make your meetings as consistent as possible. Block your calendar off in the morning and/or the afternoon for about 1-3 hours (total) to give yourself dedicated time to work. Consider agreeing to have meetings during certain hours. This could be 10am-3pm. Try and block your calendar off for lunch (12-1pm). Even if you don’t take an hour lunch, give yourself a buffer from 12-12h15 and 12h45-1pm to wrap up meeting notes and prep for your upcoming 1pm meeting. This leaves time to eat during 12h15-12h45. Capping the number of meetings per day is a good idea. If no more than 5 meetings per day is your magic number, and it works, keep going. Things to keep in mind, 5 meetings of 1 hour a pop is not the same as 5 meetings at 30 minutes a piece. Find the right balance that works for you. Maybe consider meeting time vs meeting quantity.

• Delegate: If you’re part of a meeting series for a project and you feel you’re time is being wasted, or it’s not relevant to what you do, find someone to take your place in the meeting who may greatly benefit from the meeting. This is a perfect opportunity to leverage your team members to step in on your behalf. They would benefit from this level of knowledge and discussion, giving them a chance to grow and take on more. You could then connect further on the important elements of the meeting during your 121 with them.

Consolidating, streamlining and delegating are just a couple of examples of setting your calendar straight. You need to set boundaries, create non-negotiables, or even better, negotiate time blocks with people. While you may not want to be the one to setup the meetings, however this may work in your favor. You now have the control to find a time that works more conveniently for you.

Lastly, make a habit of doing a deep dive of your calendar on a weekly basis. Dedicate an hour to reviewing the next 4 weeks of your calendar. Block off vacation time, work travel days, brainstorming sessions, etc. all in advance. Push meetings out in advance, not the day before they happen. You should also make a habit of reviewing your calendar before you log off for the day, to mentally prepare for what’s ahead. Make note of what you see. What did you like/not prefer in how you managed your calendar, and ensure you make those adjustments during your 4 week deep dive review.

If you are still struggling to figure out how to manage your calendar, book a discovery call in the mentoring tab, and we could discuss this further.