There’s one seemingly innocent “habit” in businesses that guzzles a lot more work, productivity, and time than most people think.
Of course, I’m talking about meetings.
I hate meetings.
And no, it’s not just because I lean slightly more introverted on the personality scales.
It’s because there are few things more unproductive than meetings.
Let me explain…
First, most meetings are far longer than they oughta be. I’d go as far to say that 90% of meetings (if not, more) can be an email.
Second, almost nothing gets accomplished at most meetings. Sure, every once in a while you may have an insight that only collaboration could’ve brought. But this is the exception that proves the rule.
Third, and this is the most damaging point, is that every meeting—from a 7-minute meeting to an hour-long meeting and every meeting in between—wastes even more time than appears on your schedule.
Why?
Well, every meeting has a “hidden time-sucks” both before and after the meeting.
Before the meeting, you have to prepare. You also have to stop doing everything else you’re doing. You can start any new projects, and if you try to, you won’t be able to get it done. You may not even be able to start.
You have to stop working on most things around 30 minutes (maybe a few minutes later) before the meeting starts.
And then there’s another unproductive time-suck after the meeting. This could last anywhere between an extra 10 minutes up to an hour, depending on the meeting in question.
Now let’s do some quick maths:
Let’s say you have a 30-minute meeting scheduled on your calendar.
You stop working on anything productive 30 minutes before the meeting. That 30-minute meeting is now a 60-minute meeting.
But then, if it takes you anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes to get back into a workflow (which is a conservative estimate), your 30-minute meeting has now become a 2-hour meeting.
In other words:
In businesses all across the world, they lost two hours of productivity for a 30-minute meeting.
We haven’t even factored in the sheer volume of meetings happening, something that only gets magnified in work-from-home organizations. There are some companies who will have a daily “stand-up” meeting to start the day. Other companies have weekly meetings that devour time like a vampire suckling blood.
Not to mention, actual research says that almost 50% of time is wasted in meetings anyway.
Meetings waste a lot of time, guzzle productivity, and it’s time for them to end. Nobody’s good at running meetings anyway. In fact, most meetings continue for the sole reason that managers or CEOs like to feel powerful or have a desire to micromanage their teams.
Moral of the story?
Most of your meetings can be an email.
Not only does this save an enormous amount of time, but it also doesn’t interrupt workflows or productivity. So it’s a force multiplier in the direction of more revenue instead of running away from said revenue.
Think about this before scheduling your next meeting.
And I realize how hypocritical this will seem…
But if you need help growing your email revenue, hit reply, and we’ll set up a quick chat, which, unlike most meetings, will be simple, to the point, and could just be the thing responsible for doubling, tripling, or quadrupling your bottom line by the end of the year.
John