The only 6 meetings you should have (cancel the rest)
Use this framework to decide if it should be a meeting
Morrrrning team,
On average, I speak to 50 managers directly every single day. Through coaching, DMs, emails, workshops Q&As, comments etc and collectively… We’ve got a huge problem.
DAILY, I hear:
“I never have enough time to manage, whilst also doing my job”
And I ALWAYS follow up by saying…
“Tell me how many hours of your week you spend in meetings”
They all tend to respond with a sort of grimace, smiley, ‘eek’ kind of look.
Time is such a funny concept in management. It’s a finite resource. Yet we seem to give it away easier than money, trust and love (all of which are technically infinite).
And I know we have bosses to please and 1-on-1s to run. But what would happen if we got REALLY strict over our time?
If we started to realise that when we get a random, 1hr meeting invite for tomorrow afternoon, with no agenda, barely any explanation and it’s right in the middle of your deep focus work time… We say NO.
This is stealing your time. Someone with a lack of respect over their own time, who now wants to take yours away too.
Not on your watch.
And what about when we go to send out that meeting invite, instead of 1hr, we do it for 15 minutes instead?
I used to start my weeks by going through my calendar and cancelling at least half of my meetings. I’m deadly serious. And those I couldn’t cancel I would ask for a 1hr to be done in 20 mins.
About 4 years ago, I built a framework for my team to END toxic meeting culture.
It’s called ‘should this really be a meeting’. And will run you through all the dos and don’ts of sending and accepting meeting invites. Including the 6 actually important meeting types with some guiding questions/agendas.
You CAN become a master of your time.
This framework was one of my faves I’ve ever built - It actually got picked up by the team at Sage to start distributing around their employees too because it was so helpful.
So once you feel comfortable with the concepts yourself, I’d encourage you share it within your team to encourage a healthy meeting culture too.
Below you can see my meeting decision tree, along with the only meeting types that are useful (and the ones that aren’t)
Watch me explain the framework, and how I avoid pointless meetings in this 6-min video:
Download a high-quality version of the Meet Or Move framework here.
Enjoy reading and digesting.
If NOTHING else… Go through your calendar this week and cancel at least 2 of your meetings.
Peace,
H