Many people talk about saying “no” to a lot of things so you have time to do the important things. I agree with this, but I want to expand on it a bit.
I create time boundaries. I realize that time spent working and the results I create are mostly independent of each other. I also realize that work will fill the time it is allotted (if I have 1 day to write a report it will take one day; if I have three, it will take three).
Each day I decide when I will end my day so I do not work past that point. This ensures I know what is important and I get focus on those things. I do not want to play whack -a-mole with all of the problems that come up because I wound never get anything important done. I know so be successful you have to make a plan and stick to it and that will not happen if I am constantly chasing the next problem.
I have been testing something over the last year. I have started scheduling meetings for 30 minutes instead of the automatic hour. Guess what, we still get everything done that needs to be done. I am not sure why an hour is the chosen meeting time but when forced to come up with a solution to a problem in a shorter amount of time, we still come up with it.
I will leave a meeting if it goes past the end time unless it is valuable to me. I have been through many rambling meetings about things which are unimportant to me and once the time is up, I get up and leave. I do not pay attention to the lizard brain saying “what will the other people or managers think of me leaving their meeting”. Typically, others want to leave too and when I get up it makes many follow me. All of a sudden they wrap up the meeting within 5 minutes of me leaving.
I know these things make some of my co-workers uncomfortable but my managers are okay with it because I am extremely productive.
One of the things I disliked the most back when I worked in corporate America were the constant (unproductive) meetings. Such a huge time waster. Sometimes I think we meet just to say we had a meeting. I applaud what you’re doing Josh.
Too often meetings are used to get a group to make a decision because the individual is too afraid to take action.
Haha, this post made me chuckle; I’m not in corporate America, but I’ve heard about this wasteful meeting thing a lot. I think it’s great that you get up after 1/2 and get out, and then they finish the meeting right away. Amazing what can be accomplished if people just stay focused!
Some meetings can be valuable but like you said it is a focus problem. It seems the bigger the organization the more wasteful the meetings.