I just spent time putting together the agenda for a committee meeting tomorrow — and noticed that it looked remarkably similar to the one this group had last week. So, I canceled the meeting. If we’re just in the “updates-on-the-project” stage of our work, there is no need to gather in person to do that.
Too many times, we meet because there is a meeting scheduled on the calendar. Doing agendas in advance is a good way to prevent meeting “just because.” If there isn’t meat on the bones, do yourself and everyone else a favor and hit the delete button.
Time is the most valuable commodity. If there isn’t a compelling need that warrants in-person interactions or decisions, don’t hold a meeting and instead, do updates by email/Teams/Slack, etc. Save your convenings for work that truly matters.
