Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to try a double header. If you
Speaker 1: are meeting with the same person or people twice in
Speaker 1: short succession, consolidate both agendas into one meeting, make it
Speaker 1: a double header, and free up some uninterrupted time for
Speaker 1: something else. In many organizations, it can be quite common
Speaker 1: to meet with the same people twice in a week
Speaker 1: or so. Maybe you are collaborating with the same people
Speaker 1: on multiple projects, or maybe you are working on a
Speaker 1: client project together, but you are also jointly running a
Speaker 1: brown bag lunch series for the department. You know how
Speaker 1: this goes. What tends to happen is that we view
Speaker 1: all our projects as completely separate, and when we need
Speaker 1: to meet with people for each project, the meetings get
Speaker 1: scheduled separately. This certainly happens when we are scheduling our
Speaker 1: own meetings, but it happens with assistance too, because they
Speaker 1: are probably thinking of projects separately as well. Have I
Speaker 1: set up meetings for project A and Project B this week? Great?
Speaker 1: I am doing what I am supposed to do, So
Speaker 1: what winds up happening is that you and Bob and
Speaker 1: Kia may be working together on project A and Project B,
Speaker 1: and you may have a meeting about each project in
Speaker 1: a given week. Maybe you and Kara are also working
Speaker 1: together on projects C, so you have a third meeting
Speaker 1: with her. You are spending a lot of time with Kara.
Speaker 1: That is not a bad thing. But as I point
Speaker 1: out in my forthcoming book, Tranquility by Tuesday, if you
Speaker 1: plan your life in weeks, you will see this more clearly.
Speaker 1: As you survey your landscape for the upcoming you will
Speaker 1: see that you have multiple meetings with the same people.
Speaker 1: Recognizing that you have more than one meeting with the
Speaker 1: same people creates an opportunity to consolidate is get to gathers.
Speaker 1: You can do a double header most of the time.
Speaker 1: If you consolidate meetings, you won't need the full amount
Speaker 1: of time you scheduled for the two individual meetings. Say
Speaker 1: you have two hour long meetings with Bob and Kara,
Speaker 1: one about project DAY and one about Project B. You
Speaker 1: will probably be able to conduct the business of both
Speaker 1: those meetings in an hour and a half. At most,
Speaker 1: it will be an hour and forty five minutes. It's
Speaker 1: pretty easy to see why every single meeting exacts transaction costs.
Speaker 1: There is often times spent waiting for latecomers. There is
Speaker 1: the time spent getting organized and chit chatting in a
Speaker 1: consolidated meeting. All if this happens once, not twice or more,
Speaker 1: you may need less time for wrap up at the
Speaker 1: end of the meeting too, since you aren't actually parting
Speaker 1: at the end of the first junk of material, you
Speaker 1: are plowing right into the second matter. What's more, meetings
Speaker 1: tend to expand or contract to fill the available time,
Speaker 1: so if you have an hour and a half budgeted
Speaker 1: for this double header, you will probably make it work.
Speaker 1: So by consolidating the two meetings, you end up saving
Speaker 1: fifteen to thirty minutes. Even better, you save yourself the
Speaker 1: individual transaction costs of stopping other work and then restarting
Speaker 1: it afterwards. Your schedule will be less chopped up, so
Speaker 1: you will have more time available for what productivity expert
Speaker 1: cal Newport calls deep work. Now, as you study your schedule,
Speaker 1: you may find that some of the meetings you can
Speaker 1: consolidate are recurring meetings. That means that the few minutes
Speaker 1: it takes. Adjust your schedules and find a consolidated meeting time.
Speaker 1: Once we'll pay off in less total time and meetings
Speaker 1: every single week. That is a definite win. So if
Speaker 1: we envision our scenario with Bob and Kara, you could
Speaker 1: picture that the three of you do a double header
Speaker 1: on project Day and Project b Then you say goodbye
Speaker 1: to Bob and you and Kara stick around to chat
Speaker 1: about projects c even more efficiencies are achieved. One easy
Speaker 1: entry point to this scheduling concept is to do a
Speaker 1: double header after any all staff for all department meetings
Speaker 1: that you may be required to attend. If you need
Speaker 1: to do a weekly meeting with Mary, and you and
Speaker 1: Mary are both at the department meeting, you can stack
Speaker 1: the meeting with Mary right after it ends. That way,
Speaker 1: if the meeting ends early, you and Mary can start
Speaker 1: early rather than kicking around for ten minutes looking for
Speaker 1: something else small to do. Or if the meeting runs late,
Speaker 1: neither of you will be inconvenienced waiting for the other. Now,
Speaker 1: to be clear, double headers are about rescheduling existing meetings.
Speaker 1: I am not suggesting setting up new meetings. In general,
Speaker 1: most people need to be in far fewer meetings than
Speaker 1: they are currently in. I suggest taking a good look
Speaker 1: at whether all your recurring meetings actually need to happen,
Speaker 1: But if they do, a double header can save some time.
Speaker 1: It may require a little work to figure out the logistics,
Speaker 1: but you know this isn't rocket science. If a different
Speaker 1: person is leading project A than is leading Project B,
Speaker 1: just switch who is leading the meeting in the middle.
Speaker 1: Agree to the agenda in advance so everything is adequately covered.
Speaker 1: But hopefully you are doing that already with your meetings.
Speaker 1: If necessary, you could switch which project comes first week
Speaker 1: to week in case there is any concern about people
Speaker 1: feeling fresh or trying to rush through things. But given
Speaker 1: the benefits, I think it is worth a little trial
Speaker 1: and error to make it work. If you try a
Speaker 1: double header meeting, I would love to hear how it goes.
Speaker 1: You can reach me at Laura at Laura Vanderkam dot com.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at before Breakfast pod.
Speaker 1: That's be the number four then Breakfast p O d.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is
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