7 ways to make meetings less awful

If you spend a lot of time in meetings, you’ve probably noticed what a waste of time many of them are. Here’s some help changing that from the TechSoup Blog, at Why Your Meetings Suck (and How to Fix It):

1. Inviting Everyone to the Meeting. (Fix: only invite those who must be there.)
   
2. Not Sending Out the Agenda and Pre-work in Advance. (Fix: Absolute clarity about the purpose and desired outcome of the meeting.)
   
3. Not Staying Focused on the Agenda. (Fix: Topic nomads will be prosecuted.)
   
4. The Meeting Organizer Is Always the Bad Guy. (Fix: Everyone is empowered to keep the meeting on topic.)
   
5. Not Taking Good Notes. (Fix: Someone should be the note-taker, and it shouldn’t be the least experienced person in the room.)
   
6. Multitasking in Meetings. (Fix: Not allowed. If the meeting doesn’t require your full attention, you shouldn’t be in it.)
   
7. Not Starting and Ending the Meeting on Time. (Fix: Don’t train everyone to ignore the clock by letting it slide.)
   

One more: If a task can be done without a meeting, don’t meet!