Meeting Overload Is Stealing Your Time: How to Take Back Your Calendar Without Missing What Matters

You can watch my video by clicking on the graphic below or read my thoughts beneath it:

Is there any way to avoid meetings overload? Well, let’s think about that for a little bit. Number 1, what types of meetings are you getting invited to? And number 2, why are you getting invited to them? Is your company the type that has a template? One template for a meeting and part of that template is everybody gets invited?

If that’s the case, there are a couple of options for you. You can talk to whoever’s in charge of the template and ask if there’s any way to define who actually needs to be at this meeting. The other thing you can do is go to the meeting organizer for each meeting and ask them, Who actually needs to be there?

What is going to be covered at this meeting? And so that way, you know, if this is something that’s mandatory for all employees, mandatory for everybody in your department, or whether it’s not mandatory and it’s not a meeting that you need to attend. If you don’t feel comfortable approaching the meeting organizer and asking them this question, this is something else you can do.

As soon as you get the invite, ask the meeting organizer if you can get a copy of the agenda so that way you can arrive prepared for the meeting. So you’re making it about showing up for the team and you are not making it about, hmm, are they really organized?

Because if there’s not an agenda within 2 business days of a meeting, you really need to ask yourself, is this going to be a productive meeting? So those are a few ways that you can hopefully decrease the amount of meeting overload you have.

For more practical strategies to reduce meeting overload, protect your time, and work more efficiently, check out The Inefficiency Assassin: Time Management Tactics for Working Smarter, Not Longer.