Consider the 4 Ps: Modern-Day Meeting Tips to Lighten Your Workload

If you have ever felt overwhelmed by the Meeting-Doing juggle– you are not alone!

Do you struggle with getting your most important work done while also keeping up a demanding meeting schedule? (Not to mention building in a bio break!)

Especially since COVID brought on this wave of back-to-back virtual meetings, I invite you to STEP BACK and make some adjustments to give you less stress and more time.

Sound good? Let’s dig into the 4 Ps…

1. PURPOSE - Identify the essential reason or purpose of each meeting in your calendar. Ask yourself, “Is this meeting necessary?” If so, is it necessary for YOU to attend, or could someone else attend and fill you in on the most relevant takeaways?

The purpose of a given meeting could be as simple, yet important, as (re)establishing human connection, understanding, and/or trust through an in-person handshake or eye contact.

While there are no “wrong reasons” to have a meeting, my recommendation is – before setting or confirming meetings – to contrast the purpose of your meetings with your other competing work priorities. It is a good rule of thumb to go ahead with a meeting if there is an important decision(s) to be made with the right people at the right time.

That said, sometimes saying no or at least not now can take the pressure off so you can get done what you need to do without working until 2 AM.

2. PLANNING - Once the purpose of the meeting is clear, invite only essential participants and provide them with a draft agenda requesting their input before the meeting.

Determine roles and responsibilities beforehand.

Be ready with all of the necessary information, materials, and technology to run your meeting as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

3. PARTICIPATION - With a commitment to being positive and productive, encourage active participation as well as active listening. Emphasize that meetings are for decision-making, not just information sharing, and participation is critical.

Start and end on time (or early). Set clear roles, such as facilitator, timekeeper, scribe, etc.

Review or establish basic meeting guidelines, such as concise communication, decision-making norms, and metrics for a successful/productive meeting.

Circulate the agenda again for final input to increase ‘buy-in’ and then stick to the agenda as planned, ideally having already assigned speakers and time blocks to agenda items.

4. POST-MEETING - Have you heard the expression, “If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen?” Well, there is something to be said for that in our fast-paced, largely virtual daily lives.

The worst feeling is attending lots of meetings but having little to show for it due to a lack of clarity, action, and/or accountability after the fact.

Remember to distribute Meeting Minutes with key points and decisions made from the meeting. Additionally, delegate specific tasks to specific people with clear deadlines, ideally captured in some form of a project management software like Asana, ClickUp, Monday.com, Trello, etc.

I’d love to hear which of the 4 Ps was most helpful to you and why. Please hit Reply to let me know and catch me up.

To Your Success!

Amy