4 ms·

Agree. But much easier to know we should follow-up than to actually do it Especially for the more technical minded people (me included). Wish there was an AI th

Agree. But much easier to know we should follow-up than to actually do it Especially for the more technical minded people (me included). Wish there was an AI that can automate it! For me though, number of meetings you get pulled into without Agenda or need is the number one time killer!

baconomatic 10y ago
We used to have this problem at work too. We solved it pretty easily (some people may find it a bit rude), but if the meeting was: a) going nowhere b) wasn't relevant to what you do you would just say "Hey, not sure I'm needed here, I'm going to get back to work". This has worked really well to pare down the number of meetings we have as well as making them more focused. We've also found that when you have a set length for a meeting you will fill all of that time up. Some of us have started doing a bit more of impromptu meetings that are short and to the point. Obviously this isn't an easy thing to bring to any workplace, but I sure wish you could.
gregmac 10y ago
> For me though, number of meetings you get pulled into without Agenda or need is the number one time killer! I solved that by just not going to those. If someone invites me and has no agenda, I reply and ask "What is this about? What are we deciding?". That generally prompts an agenda, but in the rare cases where it doesn't, I will just reject the request and literally not show up. After I've done this once with someone, I generally don't get another invite from them without an agenda and clear purpose. (Maybe they just stopped inviting me, but that's fine with me too). If the person sending the request is your superior, you have to be a bit more tactful, but it can still be done -- you may have to show up anyway, but really drive hard to get to decisions and/or action items (and get them written down and shared with attendees). If the meeting really does turn out to be useless (no decision, no action items) you can privately meet with your superior to discuss that later, and hopefully convince them it wasn't worth spending hundreds of dollars to do literally nothing.
- avmich 10y ago
  There is an opposite danger, you skip too many meetings and then you get invited to one, and you go there, and you don't understand much what other people are talking about. And that is because you miss the common vocabulary, approaches, ideas which were discussed on previous meetings.

baconomatic 10y ago

We used to have this problem at work too. We solved it pretty easily (some people may find it a bit rude), but if the meeting was: a) going nowhere b) wasn't relevant to what you do you would just say "Hey, not sure I'm needed here, I'm going to get back to work". This has worked really well to pare down the number of meetings we have as well as making them more focused. We've also found that when you have a set length for a meeting you will fill all of that time up. Some of us have started doing a bit more of impromptu meetings that are short and to the point. Obviously this isn't an easy thing to bring to any workplace, but I sure wish you could.

gregmac 10y ago

> For me though, number of meetings you get pulled into without Agenda or need is the number one time killer! I solved that by just not going to those. If someone invites me and has no agenda, I reply and ask "What is this about? What are we deciding?". That generally prompts an agenda, but in the rare cases where it doesn't, I will just reject the request and literally not show up. After I've done this once with someone, I generally don't get another invite from them without an agenda and clear purpose. (Maybe they just stopped inviting me, but that's fine with me too). If the person sending the request is your superior, you have to be a bit more tactful, but it can still be done -- you may have to show up anyway, but really drive hard to get to decisions and/or action items (and get them written down and shared with attendees). If the meeting really does turn out to be useless (no decision, no action items) you can privately meet with your superior to discuss that later, and hopefully convince them it wasn't worth spending hundreds of dollars to do literally nothing.

avmich 10y ago
There is an opposite danger, you skip too many meetings and then you get invited to one, and you go there, and you don't understand much what other people are talking about. And that is because you miss the common vocabulary, approaches, ideas which were discussed on previous meetings.