Speaker 1: Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the New Corner Office,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we share strategies for thriving in the
Speaker 1: new world of work, where location and hours are more
Speaker 1: flexible than in the past. Today's tip is to be
Speaker 1: strategic about your meetings. By understanding exactly when they'll be happening,
Speaker 1: you can be better prepared, manage your energy, and figure
Speaker 1: out what times you can do non meeting work too.
Speaker 1: Collaboration is amazing in theory, none of us has all
Speaker 1: the answers in practice, though, what it means is that
Speaker 1: most jobs and big organizations involve a lot of meetings.
Speaker 1: This tendency to schedule meetings about everything is exacerbated in
Speaker 1: a world where lots of people are working from home.
Speaker 1: You can't see your colleague to casually ask for his
Speaker 1: feedback on your proposal, schedule a formal meeting to get
Speaker 1: his feedback, and thus meetings proliferate. Some of that is inevitable,
Speaker 1: but by being a bit more mindful and strategic, you
Speaker 1: can manage your meetings better. Here's what you do. By
Speaker 1: the time you start work on Monday morning, take a
Speaker 1: good look at your calendar for the week. When do
Speaker 1: you have meetings. Some are no doubt weekly recurring sorts,
Speaker 1: and some are one off types. Figure out how many
Speaker 1: hours you currently have booked into meetings. Then do a
Speaker 1: little triage. Do all these meetings have to happen. We've
Speaker 1: talked in previous episodes about seeing what can be canceled,
Speaker 1: ask for agendas for anything that seems iffy. Anything that
Speaker 1: is a one on one check in might be better
Speaker 1: approached as a quick phone call, So go ahead and
Speaker 1: make that call. The goal is to reduce the overall
Speaker 1: meeting load. Then, once you're clear on what's staying, figure
Speaker 1: out what you need to prepare for. When people get busy,
Speaker 1: they just start tromping from one thing to the next,
Speaker 1: like middle schoolers changing classes. Here's my two o'clock, my
Speaker 1: three o'clock, my four o'clock. This can be a harrowing
Speaker 1: experience if you suddenly realize that the three o'clock involves
Speaker 1: a complicated pitch to a not entirely friendly audience, or
Speaker 1: if you're going to be asked at the two o'clock
Speaker 1: for your opinion on a rather lengthy document. So figure
Speaker 1: out when you can prepare for anything that requires preparation,
Speaker 1: and mark these times on your calendar and finally take
Speaker 1: a step back and look at the landscape. Not all
Speaker 1: meetings for the week will be set by Monday morning,
Speaker 1: of course, but when you see what time is available,
Speaker 1: you can decide what time is good for meetings and
Speaker 1: what isn't. For instance, if you've got no meetings on
Speaker 1: Wednesday morning and two in the afternoon, I'd suggest that
Speaker 1: if someone asks to meet on Wednesday, you offer any
Speaker 1: remaining afternoon slots that leaves the morning open for individual
Speaker 1: focused work. One of the most aggravating parts of organizational
Speaker 1: life is that people feel their schedules are chopped up
Speaker 1: they never have time to achieve that state of flow.
Speaker 1: Some of this is inevitable, but some is self imposed.
Speaker 1: You don't have to give Wednesday morning away unless there's
Speaker 1: a really good reason. The upside of mapping out your
Speaker 1: meetings is that you can approach the week feeling far
Speaker 1: more confident and ready for what's to come. You'll steward
Speaker 1: your energy appropriately, you'll perform better in the meetings that happen,
Speaker 1: and there may be fewer of them, and they'll happen
Speaker 1: at times that work better for you. Given how draining
Speaker 1: meetings can be. That's really the best possible outcome. So today,
Speaker 1: approach your calendar with this strategic spirit, map your meetings
Speaker 1: for the week, and see what you can do to
Speaker 1: make your work life feel more doable. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura, Thanks for listening, and here's to succeeding
Speaker 1: in the New Corner office. The New Corner is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.