3 tips to always end meetings on time

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Learn to get more out of your meetings by shortening them by just 5-10 minutes.

If there are multiple appointments for the day, one long meeting can disrupt all plans. Entrepreneur Patrick Ewers offers three strategies to avoid this.

1. Before the meeting: shorten the duration of the meeting

Most often, meetings last half an hour or an hour. It is most convenient to enter such time intervals into the calendar. But because of this, it turns out that one meeting begins immediately after another. As a result, there is a lot of inconvenience.

Replace half-hour meetings with 25-minute meetings and hourly meetings with 50-minute ones. You will have time to do everything the same as before. But between two meetings following each other, there will be little time left for preparation, or solving urgent issues.

In order not to offend any of the participants, warn about the changes in advance. When making an appointment, just mention that your meetings are now 25 or 50 minutes long.

2. During the meeting: remind the audience of the purpose of the meeting and together summarize

The first minutes of the meeting are extremely important. Use them to remind everyone what you are here for and how long the meeting will last. Mention that you have about 50 minutes to discuss all the issues, and the last five will be spent summarizing. Then no one will be surprised that you started to close the meeting after 45 minutes. Most likely, other participants will even be grateful, because this way you save not only your time, but also theirs.

Set a reminder or, which will ring in 45 minutes, and put the phone on the table so that everyone remembers the time and does not get distracted. When the alarm sounds, end the meeting, wherever you are.

If you have not had time to resolve all the issues, in the remaining five minutes, schedule a new meeting the next day. And:

• repeat who made the commitment;
• briefly list the main findings;
• agree on the next steps;
• Share something positive, such as what you enjoyed in this meeting.

3. After the meeting: briefly review the past meeting and prepare for the next

After a 50-minute meeting, you should have 10 minutes left. Spend the first five on the analysis of the main points of the previous meeting, so as not to forget anything. Also, jot down a draft letter to all participants to remind them of and commitments. This will increase the value of the time spent, and in addition, it will provide something even more valuable - a sense of completion.

Spend the second five minutes preparing for the upcoming meeting. If you already know the members, remind yourself:

• what issues need to be discussed;
• what previous tasks needed to be completed;
• what do you know about the participants: their professional and personal interests.

If you are not familiar with the person with whom you are going to meet, look for information about him: specify the name and position, view the profiles on social networks. And think about which phrase you will start the conversation with.