just do it — John Reggio

I spend a lot of time in meetings, or I should say I waste a lot of time in meetings. Most meetings start 5 minutes late. Then it takes 10 minutes to setup the video conferencing. Once the meeting begins there's no agenda. Often we have meetings to plan other meetings. We hypothesize. We dream up of new processes. We talk about what we should be doing. Sometimes we even talk about why something is impossible when we haven't even tried it yet. Enough is enough. Let's stop talking about what we want to do and let's just do it! Meetings can only be productive when everyone is focused. That's the responsibility of the organizer. The problem is most people either don't have the time to prepare for the meeting or simply don't know how to run a meeting. The organizer must begin by stating the goals. She must keep the conversation on topic and keep the talk moving forward. At the same time she must recognize productive conversation and allow these to continue. If people are no longer needed in the meeting she should let them go. If they were never needed they shouldn't be invited in the first place. Believe me, people don't want to be invited to meetings if they're not needed. Make an effort not to waste productive time. Be sure to keep meetings short, focused and productive.