How to shorten meetings (for real)

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If you work With a typical office job, even remotely, you’ll probably spend more time than you’d like in meetings. Last year, a survey by AI customer interaction company Dialpad found that 83 percent of 2,800 respondents said they spent four to 12 hours a week in meetings. If you’re a founder or an executive, that time can increase to 20+ hours.

No one could blame you for be exhausted. Whether virtual or in person, meetings require focus and can be exhausting, especially for introverts They are not energized by interactions with coworkers.

Unless your company takes the bold stance of eliminating meeting types, such as Shopify said it was doing it earlier this year, it is unlikely that you will be able to escape them completely. But you can at least try to shorten them, especially if you are the organizer. Worker meetings are often too long, dragged down by Zoom issues, idle chatter, and the lack of a clear agenda.

No strategy is perfect, but here are some ideas to reduce the time you’re stuck in hell.

How to shorten virtual meetings

If you’re the meeting scheduler, consider eliminating one-hour or 45-minute meetings, unless they’re mission-critical or involve many teams submitting updates. Ask yourself: Can we do everything in 30 minutes? How about 15? Don’t commit too much to the time you’ve set aside on the calendar.

Before you send out the invitation, ask yourself, “Do all these people need to be at this meeting?” You can always fill in those who didn’t attend with a brief update, if needed. Meetings with too many participants are also likely to take longer.

The person who organized the meeting should lead the discussion and be careful to keep it in order and on time. If that’s you and that’s not your strong point, assign someone else to lead the meeting. Don’t have a meeting with no one in charge; that’s a great way to wander and go too long.

The pandemic shutdown made Zoom a tool that almost everyone had to start using, from CEOs to K-12 students. But strangely, people didn’t seem to get much better at navigating Zoom’s many control buttons and getting the sound to work. It’s 2023 and meetings are still clouded with, “Can you hear me? I am silent?

Let participants know ahead of time that the virtual meeting room will open 10 minutes early for a “get your mic and camera up and running” grace period. If possible, have someone in the meeting room to help resolve those issues.

Be consistent with the virtual platform you use for meetings. Switching from Zoom to Microsoft Teams to Google Meet introduces more variables that can cause delays.

For all types of meetings, make sure there is an agenda. Nothing drags on a meeting like a lack of action items and aimless conversation.

And speaking of conversation, set a limit of five minutes (or less) for small talk. If a team hasn’t met in a while, some banter is fine, but don’t let it derail the schedule. For regular meetings, table social chat until after the meeting.