Whether they're online or face-to-face, busy professionals attend up to 60 meetings a month! They're one of the biggest sources of wasted time, frustration and stress.

It's easy to end up with back-to-back meetings or to overbook or even double book your time. Especially if you don't have a strategic approach to how you manage your calendar.

Whether you control your own diary or your Assistant or colleagues set up appointments for you, it's important to have a few guidelines in place for how you and others manage your time and your availability.

Simple Guidelines For More Effective Meetings

Time Blocking and Meeting Times

Time blocking is one of the best ways to organise and manage your schedule.

Block out WORKING time. Create time to actually get work done. Time for Admin, Finance, Marketing, Report writing etc. Avoid meetings being booked into any and every available time slot when you have important work to do.

The same applies for exercise and personal time. Block it out in your calendar at the beginning of the week or as a regular time slot before your diary gets filled up with meetings and appointments.

Block out MEETING time. Are there certain days/times that are better for meetings or times to avoid? If other people have access to your calendar - set aside blocks of 'meeting' time in the week. Meetings can only be booked into those time slots. Avoid a scatter-gun approach where you end up with meetings all over the place.

Avoid Mondays and Fridays. Only book meetings on three days out of five. Leaving two days a week for preparation, follow-up, writing notes and actually getting other work done. How can you get your other important work done if you spend ALL week in meetings or travelling?

If you have a particularly busy week, and it's unavoidable, book out a day or two the following week as office/non-meeting time to catch-up.

Limit meetings after 4pm or only set aside one or two days a week when you have evening meetings. If you need to meet with clients outside of normal working hours or you work across timezones. It doesn't have to be every evening or every weekend.

Set times for regular, repeating events. For instance if you have a regular team meeting once a week or once a month or you catch-up with your direct reports once a week. If you put these in your calendar every week/month, you don't have to keep searching around for a time when you're all free.

Be Selective

Decline or cancel irrelevant or unstructured meetings. No agenda, no meeting! If you don't know what's going to be discussed or what the outcome is, how can you prioritise? How will you decide if it's important or if you need to be there? If you don't think you'll add value or it doesn't add to what you want to achieve, decline or cancel it.

Limit the number in a day. Stick to a maximum of three to four meetings each day as a realistic, manageable number. This also depends on whether they're virtual or face-to-face and how long each one is.

If you end up with back-to-back days of meetings, there's never time to catch-up. Or you spend your evenings and weekends doing so.

Minimise travel time. Now we're used to Zoom/Team, reduce the amount of time you spend travelling and have a virtual meeting instead. When it's in a different location or there's a long travel time to get there, you might be limited to one a day.

Arrange something else in the same location or close enough to limit travelling time. I've known people travel for a whole day for a one hour meeting. Fine if it's an important client or there's a good reason but is it always the best option?

Eliminate back-to-back. We all know how well that works! You end up exhausted by the end of the day and frustrated because you haven't been able to achieve anything else. When they overrun you end up either having to shorten the next one or accumulate overrun time through the day. Cancel or reschedule if this happens.

Say no to ad-hoc meetings. If you regularly ambushed by ad-hoc meetings, treat them in the same way you would any unplanned interruption. If it's not urgent, suggest arranging a time to speak later, either the same day or at a more appropriate time.

When And How Long?

Allow time in-between. Leave at least 15 minutes between meetings, preferably 30 and as long as you need to get from one meeting to the next A. Even if it's disconnecting from one Zoom/Team to login to the next one. Give yourself time to review your notes before the meeting and jot down any important actions after each meeting.

Change the duration. Instead of defaulting to an hour or 30 minutes, set the length of the meeting to something different - 20, 50 or 75 minutes. Not only does this give you time between meetings but it keeps the meetings concise and avoids just filling the time available.

Another option is to change the start and end time from being on the hour or half hour every time. Try ten to or quarter past instead. It keeps people on their toes and they may even arrive early!

Avoid early morning starts - especially on a Monday. Unless you love early mornings or you plan to finish early. If you always start early AND finish late, you extend the working day.

Avoid important meetings on your first day back from holiday or after you've been out of the office for a few days. Use this time to catch-up, clear your Inbox and reconnect with your team or colleagues.

Communicate these guidelines to anyone who has access to your diary or calendar or regularly schedules meetings for you.

Automate

Avoid the need to cross-check calendars or send emails to and fro to check availability. Use an online system to enable people to book meetings and appointments directly in your calendar. A system like Acuity, Calendly or vCita will sync with your calendar and even set up a Zoom link. I use Acuity so people can automatically check my availability and book time for an initial chat or Strategy Session.

Alternatively if you're organising a time with several people, give them options with a tool like Doodle. Enter a few suggested times and then find one that's the best fit.

Apply a structure and basic guidelines to how meetings fit into your week. You'll be more productive with your non-meeting time and less stressed out by too many or one's that over-run or are unscheduled.

There will always be exceptions but these should be just that, an exception and not the norm.

What tips and tricks do you use to manage your calendar?

Find out More

How to manage your meetings (Blog post)

If you're looking for a better way to plan and organise your week, take a look at the Plan Your Week - 5 Day mini-course.

Get in touch if meetings are something that impact your productivity and you want to create a better way of working.