How many meetings have you went to where the organizer did not really have an agenda and let the whole meeting spin out of control. You can just feel the time passing minute-after-minute where you are not accomplishing anything and neither are they. What a huge waste of time

Corporate America should install time clocks in every meeting room and then have special cards that have the pay rate of each employee on the card. You would slide the card into the machine at the beginning of the meeting and then again at the end. A small receipt would print telling you the cost of the meeting. Suppose you have five managers in a room at an average per hour rate of $50 after a two-hour meeting your receipt would print $500, would that get your attention? That would allow you to evaluate if the meeting was really worth the money.

Many people like to have meetings to talk about problems, but they seldom accomplish more than that, so here is what you can do about it.

No Agenda, Bail Out

If you end up in a meeting that has no agenda, after a few minutes, try to politely excuse yourself. You can always go to the bathroom and not return, and then if anyone asks, you can say you had to get back to work, make a phone call, or whatever (make sure you actually do what you say). Another trick is if your cell phone rings, excuse yourself, no need to return. Use caution with these techniques since in some corporate cultures or special meetings this will get you into hot water.

Try to batch your meetings so that your meetings run back-to-back, this helps keep chunks of your time free for other tasks where you want to be in a flow state as well as if the meeting runs long, you can excuse yourself for your next meeting.

However, if the meeting is on topic or it is of value, you will need to put away all of your “toys” and focus on the meeting, really listen and participate in the conversation. Listen with the intent of understanding and take notes so you don’t miss anything that could take up valuable time later trying to re-gather the information. If it is an important meeting, you may want to bring in a recording device so you can listen to it later if needed (make sure everyone knows your recording the conversation).

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