Be Valuable, Not Available

In the world of personal productivity, it is nothing new that emails and meetings are time wasters.

Yet, there are dozens of meetings per week (executives spend more than 20 hours per week in meetings), and we spend roughly 30 % of our workdays on email (source: McKinsey, Harvard Business Review).

Photo by Oskars Sylwan on Unsplash

And yes meetings and emails both can be valuable.

However, many of them aren’t.

This is especially true if one or more of the following points are present.

• There is a lack of purpose/preparation
• The wrong people are involved
• Time management is poor
• There is no action item

Lack of purpose/preparation

Unprepared meetings are a huge time-waster. If the crowd needed the first quarter of the meeting to find out what to actually discuss, it could’ve been done much better.

It’s similar to emails: clarity is king. However, texts are often wordy and beat around the bush instead of coming to the point.

When it comes to meetings I am fond of Amazon’s approach: Their meetings start with everyone reading a detailed written memo in silence for the first 30 minutes, so everyone is on the same page. They avoid slide presentations and instead focus on clear writing to encourage deep thinking and better decisions.

The wrong people

In how many emails have you been CCed in the past week?

And how many of them were important?

In many corporate cultures, there exists over-communication. There’s a fear of under-communicating, so people overcompensate with frequent updates, check-ins, and reply-alls.

In meetings, this can be similar. People get invited “just in case” they need to know something. So half the attendees sit in silence, wondering why they’re even there.

Sometimes it is easier said than done, but we should decline meetings where we anticipate that our presence isn’t necessary, or at least call back and ask if you can skip the meeting.

Time management

Meetings run over time, or worse - are scheduled for an hour when 15 minutes would do (or even a brief email).

And time management in the context of emails? Requesting support via email often comes delayed. Instead of asking for support right away, people wait until close to their deadline to reach out.

Action items

A meeting without action items is nothing else than a group chat with body language. To push things forward action items, responsible people, and deadlines are crucial.

In emails (especially those with multiple CCers) it can be unclear who needs to do what and when. And as emails are getting longer and more wordy (thanks you generative AI), I fear that this will become worse in the future.

We can’t control the emails we receive, but we can choose how we respond - by asking clear questions about tasks and writing short, clear messages ourselves.