Monday Musing: Did you know that 78% of people feel overwhelmed by meetings? Let’s uncover how to make every meeting count.

A year ago, I shared my thoughts on rethinking meetings to boost productivity and infuse more meaning into our gatherings. It sparked some lively conversations—meeting fatigue is real and widespread! Yet, a year on, not much seems to have changed.

Recent research from Atlassian found that half of us (51%) end up working overtime a few days a week because of meeting overload, and for those in director roles and higher, that number jumps to 67%.

What’s it like at your workplace? Do you feel the same struggles?

How to nail your meetings: Timing and length matter!

According to Slack, the sweet spot for meeting length is a maximum of 2 hours (in total) a day. Beyond that, we’re more than twice as likely to feel we don’t have enough time to focus on our real tasks.

Timing is crucial too! A survey by The Hustle found that 70% of people prefer the 10am-12pm slot for meetings. Following that, 12% favour 2pm-4pm, 10.5% go for 8am-10am, 7% like 12pm-2pm, and unsurprisingly just 0.5% choose 4pm-6pm.

It might pay to reflect on whether our calendars reflect that reality though!  

So, how can we be more intentional about our meetings and get the most out of them?

When I worked as a Chief of Staff in a large organisation, I was responsible for scheduling numerous meetings every week. To ensure these meetings were effective, I used a simple ’25’ rule, which I reflected on once a quarter. See the image below for more details. 👇

Here’s to reclaiming our time and making the most out of our workweeks!

How many meetings are on your calendar each week?

Evaluate your meeting schedule and spot opportunities for making them more efficient and impactful.

What I’ve been up to over the week that was.

Most of the time, I’m so immersed in my work that I forget to grab a camera and take a photo. Such was the case during my time spent with both the men’s and women’s squads from Port Adelaide Football Club last week, deep in leadership and culture work.

It’s a distinct privilege to have worked with these athletes, coaches and high-performance staff for two years now, defining the values and traits of their two respective high-performance cultures and supporting the development of their leaders. Given my failure (for the umpteenth time) to take a photo, here’s one of our two team captains, Connor Rozee and Janelle Cuthbertson, from last week’s player dinner instead!

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