If it feels like meetings take up way too big a chunk of your work week, they probably do. Meetings where we could otherwise spend time working take up valuable time. This includes traveling to and from meetings, department meetings, and interdepartmental meetings.

Luckily, with the resources available in today’s world, we can drastically cut down on the time wasted in meetings, and reclaim some of our work time.

cut down wasted meetings increase company productivity tips guides

Eliminate the Travel Aspect

One of the most time-consuming factors of meeting in other locations is simply getting there. You shouldn’t have to travel more than half an hour for an hour-long meeting, unless it’s a really important meeting. If you and the client or colleague in question are both comfortable with it, hold whatever meetings you can via conference call using Skype or other platforms. You can still have a productive meeting, without leaving your office – it cuts down on travel time and expenses for everyone. Not having to worry about getting to and from meetings also makes time constraints less of an issue, and it makes international business a breeze.

Drop Some Meetings Completely

If you find your meeting list growing month to month, take a good look and see if all those meetings are really necessary. Some of them definitely will be – budget meetings and certain client meetings – others, not so much. If you meet out of habit, but don’t actually get anything done, call it off. Most weekly meetings can probably be changed to monthly or bi-monthly without things falling apart.

Edit Your Meetings

This is where minutes come in handy – they keep everyone accountable and make sure your meeting stays on track. Make sure only the people who really need to be are in a meeting – pulling people away from their work for an hour when they don’t actually need to be there won’t help productivity. If your meetings tend to go off topic, cut the time in half. Knowing that time is short will keep everyone focussed and on topic. Shorter meetings also mean participants’ attention is less likely to wander.

Plan ahead as well. Make sure everything that needs to be addressed in an upcoming meeting is on the agenda. Try to avoid ad hoc topics being brought up during a meeting. It’ll keep meetings efficient, and make sure everything is covered thoroughly and not sidelined for another time.

Use the Tech Available

Getting the right software into your business can do wonders for productivity. Part of this is using the tech to cut down on meetings. Use Slack polls and progress reports to keep tabs on what’s happening with your employees. Both tools make it easy to keep an eye on employees, work, and productivity without having to arrange a sit-down meeting to check in.

In any work environment, there’s still going to be a call for meetings, and we’re far from eliminating human interaction. But if you are able to cut down on meetings, you’ll definitely lessen the distractions throughout your workday and keep your team more productive and focused.