TKO Graphix Brandwire

Poorly Planned Meeting Plans

∞ posted 1 year ago in Business meetings Planning Panning meetings

by Randy Clark

In my previous time management/time waster posts, I included interruptions, procrastination, and prioritization. Today, I’ll talk about poor planning and ineffective meetings. The proverb, “He who fails to plan, plans to fail,” warns us of the significance of planning to our success. Poor, little, or no planning is also a huge time waster.

BTW, it’s video day at the ole’ Brandwire Blog… enjoy!

Poor planning
Tackling a project without proper planning will, at least, prolong the project, if not, cause it to fail. Check out this example of a poor plan that does not achieve the desired result (my cat, Patty, likes this video).

Another example of poor planning is not creating clear organizational goals. Another is creating goals, without the required training to reach those goals. Creating goals without training is nearly the same as having no goals. Steven Covey says it better in this video. The same can be said for a lack of policies (what), procedures (how), missions (why), and vision (where we are going). If your organization does not have these in place, establish them. (If you would like ideas on how to get started, contact me.)

Consider these two points when evaluating your time and planning
• Unrealistic timeframes may lead to rushing the project, which often causes mistakes. When mistakes are made, time is wasted with “do-overs.”
• Messy work areas and useless, outdated papers, piled high, may interfere with the planning process (Do you really need those notes from 2007?).

Ineffective meetings
Unplanned or poorly planned meetings are almost always a time waster. Impromptu meetings easily become unfocused (think Steve Carell in The Office). The number of attendees multiplies the time wasted in unplanned meetings.

Survey says… two of the top five time wasters are — drum roll please — too many meetings, and meetings that are too long. What’s worse than an elongated meeting is a meeting that is not needed at all. A friend texted me last week on the way to a pre-staff meeting – that’s a meeting about a meeting!

According to a 2005 Microsoft survey, people in the U.S. spend 5.5 hours each week in meetings; 71 percent feel meetings aren’t productive. Unneeded team members involved in the meeting are another waste of time. Monologues with no participation from the group will bore others to distraction, which counts as a waste of time. Scheduling a lot of meetings may seem productive, but too often, it is the opposite.

So how do you plan your meetings? Do you have effective, shared goals, and how was this accomplished? How much time do you spend in meetings, and how productive are the meetings? And, of course, I’d love to hear your humorous or horrific meeting stories!

The next time management post will begin a series about time savers. Is that a sci-fi series? Tom Terrific and the time savers to the rescue… cue… cue… cue!