“Meetings should be like salt: A spice sprinkled carefully to enhance a dish, not poured recklessly over every forkful. Too much salt destroys a dish. Too many meetings destroy morale and motivation.” – Jason Fried (@jasonfried), Basecamp founder and CEO
According to Zippia, the average CEO has at least 37 meetings per week. That’s a colossal 72% of their time spent on meetings alone.
Now, consider your own calendar. Perhaps you exceed those numbers on a regular basis.
If you do, ask yourself: How many of those back-to-back meetings were truly productive?
In our experience, less than 50% of the commitments made during external meetings are actually followed through.
This lack of follow-through not only makes meetings ineffective but also downright damaging. In fact, the reactive chaos of day-to-day life almost guarantees this outcome.
This article highlights the true cost of back-to-back meetings. But, more importantly, it shares two strategies that will maximize your meeting effectiveness and boost productivity.
That way, you can reclaim your time, mental space, and ability to really move the needle forward!
The Chaos of Back-to-Back Meetings
Imagine this: You arrive at the office at 8:00 am with a calendar packed full of back-to-back meetings.
The meetings are scheduled so close together that you hardly have time to run to the bathroom before you’re off to the next one.
By 8:00 pm that night, you’re exhausted. You’ve spent the last 12 hours in (or on your way to) a blur of back-to-back meetings.
You hardly remember your last meeting, let alone the first. Despite working hard all day, it feels like the only thing you accomplished was adding more to your plate.
Regardless of how positive some of those meetings might have been, you can’t help but feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of new commitments and obligations made – many of which you may have already forgotten.
Sound familiar?
If your calendar is regularly booked back-to-back, it might be time to rethink your meeting management approach.
But before we talk about the solution, it’s essential that we understand what’s causing the problem in the first place so we can avoid hidden productivity sinks in the future.
The Cause of Back-to-Back Meetings
What causes people to put themselves through the stress of back-to-back meetings?
In most cases, it’s the misguided belief and feeling that by squeezing in more meetings, they’re being more productive.
But, as most of us have probably experienced, that’s rarely the case. In fact, the opposite is usually true.
Here’s why: For every meeting you attend, you usually have at least one new commitment.
And seeing as you probably entered that meeting with an already full to-do list, the chance of actually following through on that commitment in a timely fashion is relatively low.
But that’s only half the problem.
Reactivity vs Proactivity
The nature of back-to-back meetings often causes us to focus on things that are reactive and urgent throughout the entire rest of the day.
But as we know, the things that truly move your business forward are rarely urgent and reactive; they’re important and proactive.
Unfortunately, urgency almost always trumps importance …
So if you spend ~80%+ of your day in meetings, that only leaves ~20% for the truly important things.
And more often than not, that 20% is at the end of the day when your brain is exhausted and your creative thinking (a vital part of successful entrepreneurship) is compromised.
If you want to master peak productivity and reach your full potential, you need to be far more intentional about your time and commitments.
Let’s take a look at two strategies to do just that.
#1: Find Balance with a Meeting-to-Proactivity Ratio
There’s a “golden rule” for productivity you’ve probably heard before that goes something like this: Never schedule more than half your day with meetings.
And if that’s a rule you’re able to adopt, great! It provides a strong balance between proactivity and reactivity.
But for a lot of people, that simply isn’t realistic.
You don’t necessarily need a 50/50 split, but you do need to find (and enforce) a balance that works for you.
One of the most effective ways we help our clients find and maintain that balance is through a Meeting-to-Proactivity Ratio.
A Meeting-to-Proactivity Ratio is a simple number that dictates how much time you spend outside meetings for every hour you spend in one.
Making Time for Proactivity
For example: The “golden rule” of productivity would have a ratio of 1:1. Simply put, for every hour you spend in a meeting, you should spend an hour on something proactive.
This proactive time can be used for anything other than actually attending a meeting. Although, you may wish to use this time to prepare for future meetings or catch up on commitments made in prior meetings.
Here are a few examples of proactive work from Proactivity: 3 Steps to Break Free From Reactivity as an Entrepreneur:
- Developing strategic goals to ensure the upcoming year is both successful and aligned with your long-term vision,
- Advocate for a key product feature by outlining compelling reasons why it’s essential to the company’s growth, helping steer the business in the right direction, or
- Creating thought leadership content to establish yourself and your company as experts in your market.
If a 1:1 ratio isn’t realistic for your line of work, start with 1:0.5. With this ratio, you would spend half an hour outside of meetings for every hour spent in one.
Want to learn more about how to actively schedule and enforce proactive time investments?
Get free instant access to our pragmatic guide here: Whitespace Time: Your Guide to Proactive Time Management
#2: Hack Your Meeting Length
We know for many of you, meetings are an integral (and unavoidable) part of doing business.
But what if you could schedule the same number of meetings without scheduling them back-to-back (and without extending your workday well into the night)?
You can, and all it takes is a small tweak – changing the length of your meetings.
For instance:
- In most cases, the standard length for long meetings is 60 minutes. Make them 50 minutes.
- In most cases, the standard length for short meetings is 30 minutes. Make them 25 minutes.
How To Use Time Between Back-to-Back Meetings?
While an additional 5-10 minutes might not seem like much, that small window of time can make all the difference.
Not only do you now have time to find a bathroom in between meetings, you also have time for important tasks like:
- Performing a Meeting Debrief to ensure you follow through on every commitment made, and
- Preparing for your next meeting by leveraging past Meeting Debriefs and utilizing powerful relationship marketing tools.
Those two practices are often all it takes to turn an unproductive meeting into one that deepens relationships, increases mindshare, and generates valuable opportunities.
How to Shorten Your Meetings – Without Harming Your Relationships
Here’s a critical caveat to our second winning strategy …
Unless you want to risk offending the people you’re meeting with, don’t start scheduling shorter meetings without warning.
If you do, you might unintentionally communicate to your network that they aren’t worth a full 30 or 60 minutes of your time.
Instead, take the time to communicate the change frequently and transparently, at least in the beginning, as people get used to it.
We recommend mentioning the change three times:
- When someone books a meeting
- Before the meeting starts
- When the meeting ends
Let’s take a closer look at how you might handle each.
1. When Someone Books a Meeting
Let people know what to expect when they schedule a meeting; that way, there are no surprises.
For example:
“I hope it’s okay with you if our meeting is 50 minutes. These days, that’s my standard meeting length. I believe it should still give us enough time to cover everything we need to get done.”
If you work with an EA (or, even better, an EM), this is a great way to leverage their skills. Let them handle this interaction instead, with an email like this:
“Patrick typically books meetings in 50-minute increments. These are the times I have available for you … I look forward to seeing you here soon, and I know Patrick is quite excited as well.”
2. Before the Meeting Starts
To ensure everyone’s on the same page, remind your attendees about the shorter meeting length before you begin.
For example:
“Alright, it looks like we’ve got about 50 minutes today. Before we start, I want to ask your permission and see if it’s okay if we spend the last five minutes of the meeting collecting some of the key takeaways.”
3. When the Meeting Ends
To ensure no one leaves the meeting feeling slighted, wrap up with one last reminder. And if possible, find a way to close the meeting with a specific and genuine compliment.
For example:
“It looks like we’ve got about five minutes left. Let’s go ahead and close by collecting all the key action items we agreed on and deciding on any other next steps.
But before we do, let me just say I really enjoyed our conversation today. In particular, I loved learning about how you guys came up with your unique product distribution strategy. It really is ingenious.”
In most cases, these three reminders will be all it takes for attendees to accept the change.
You may be surprised: Many people will probably do more than accept it; they’ll appreciate it.
After all, a shorter meeting for you means a shorter meeting for them, too!
Put Increased Meeting Efficiency Into Action – Free How I Work Leadership User Manual Template
For many of us, meetings are an unavoidable part of doing business, but unavoidable shouldn’t have to mean unproductive.
At the end of the day, meetings should contribute to your success, not detract from it.
If your meetings are accomplishing anything less, don’t you think it’s time for a change?
Access Your How I Work Leadership User Manual Notion Template
The How I Work Leadership User Manual Template can be a game-changer when it comes to managing your time effectively, especially around meetings.
This template allows you to clearly communicate your meeting preferences, including meeting length and expectations, to your team and those you collaborate with.
How will this help?
- Consistency in Meeting Structures: When your team knows your preferred meeting times, length, and format, they can structure their agendas accordingly, leading to more focused and productive sessions.
- Increased Efficiency: Specifying shorter meeting lengths (e.g., 50 or 25 minutes) gives you time to regroup, reflect, and debrief between meetings. This reduces cognitive overload and improves your ability to follow through on commitments.
- Clarity in Collaboration: Clearly communicating your work preferences provides your team and partners with a “user manual” to your leadership. This alignment reduces confusion and ensures that your time is productive and goal-oriented.
Ready to make your meetings work for you?
Get free instant access to the How I Work Leadership User Manual Template.
