The Type A+ Podcast Episode 32 - Motivation Month: Meetingless Mondays!

Episode Description:

This week, Bloomberg confirmed that almost half of the meetings we attend could probably be eliminated.

Beth breaks down the article and gives her top 5 tips for cutting down on meeting times and stopping the flow of inbound requests in its tracks.

Links mentioned in the episode:

Bloomberg Article

Loom

Airtable

Podcast:

The Type A Plus Podcast Instagram

Host:

Beth Lawrence LinkedIn

Beth Lawrence & Company Instagram

Beth will be back each week, delivering bite-sized tips (15-minute episodes or less) on how to optimize your life and work.

Episode Transcript can be found below:

Welcome to the Type A+ podcast with me, Beth Lawrence.

I'm a certified meeting professional, an award-winning event planner, and a classic over-prepared overachiever.

In each episode, I'll deliver bite-sized tips on organizing your business and life, even during your most hectic times.

So, let's get started.

Hello Type A+ People. I'm so excited to be back! I cannot believe it is Thursday already this week has just flown by. I hope that it has been the same for you.

And for this week, we are talking about not meatless Mondays, but meaningless Mondays. I'm someone who always keeps up with the news on LinkedIn.

And this week, Bloomberg published an article that I found fascinating.

The headline was, bosses say nearly half of the meetings should disappear. Anecdotally, I think we can all agree right? From TikTok to Instagram reels and all the memes heard around the world. We've all been subjected to at least one meeting, which could have been an email.

Today, I'm going to talk about that study and give you some tips and tools to start eliminating meetings from your calendar, which will motivate you to get more work done. So about the survey, the survey was conducted by the Future Forum and involved over 10,000 desk workers. It found that business leaders spent 25 hours a week on average in meetings.

Wow. For a work week, that's supposed to be 40 hours. That is a huge chunk of your time, not to mention all the time spent scheduling meetings. The results showed the business leaders agree 46% of zoom calls and project update meetings could be eliminated without any negative impact on the organization.

Think about how many times you've been in a meeting and think this is even worth an email, let alone 60 minutes of my time. During the pandemic, especially right, I felt chained to my desk some days, while some clients and I'm sure some of your bosses and team members embrace remote work and understood that more meetings equal less time for me to produce results.

What were the companies that doubled down on meetings? But why?

Well, according to the article, business owners attend meetings like this and keep them on the calendar in the first place. for three reasons.

One, thinking the meeting will be productive to a fear that they will miss out on something important. And three as a tool to show their bosses that they are working. Honestly, how sad, right FOMO and fear of appearing unproductive makeup two-thirds of the reasons we fill our calendars with meetings. Again, believe me, I am not above this y'all.

At peak. I was in meetings for eight-plus hours a day during the pandemic. I always had availability on my calendar at all times during the week, and welcome networking appointments, random introductions, and even all-day masterminds to fill it. And don't get me wrong, are some of these appointments worth it? Absolutely. But what I didn't realize was how much my calendar was full of virtual meetings was preventing me from getting virtually any real work done.

And I got to a point where I had to stop the flow of inbound meeting requests in its tracks. And to be honest, I started to be resentful of the meetings on my calendar because there were just so many, and they were taking time from things that really would have moved the needle. Well, I love meeting new people. So once I started to feel resentful of the people that were appearing on my calendar, I knew that this needed to change.

So enter meaningless Mondays. In the spring of 2021, I started instituting meaningless Mondays and no deliverable Fridays for my business. Monday's became sacred and by blocking off my calendar, I was teaching anyone who was looking to interact with me for the first time, how best to do so. I loved easing into a fresh week with a blank calendar and taking that time to mentally prepare.

Some Mondays were incredibly productive and found me tackling everything from blog posts to financial planning, and others. Well, let's just say no episode of the housewives remained unturned. But guess what? That balance showed me the way that my patterns either motivate me or leave me feeling super depleted. Not everyone can do meetings on fewer Mondays.

To be honest, I can't anymore either. But I took some lessons from that time that helped me eliminate the need for as many meetings in general throughout the week.

Certainly, we can eliminate a few off of your car under. So here are my top five. First, I blocked my calendar for the first and last hour of every day.

So from nine to 10, and from four to five, they are mine, first and foremost. And I want to make sure that I give myself time to wrap up the tasks that I need to get done and follow through on any loose ends. And do meetings sometimes get booked during that time, very, very rarely?

And if they do, it is simply because that is the only time that is available for all parties. Second, my networking calendars on Calendly are now private. That way, I can decide who can access my calendar and when in real-time.

In theory, I always love the ease of anyone being able to see book and confirm appointments with me in real-time. But then I was not in charge of my days anymore. And that is huge for Type A+ People with a lot of things to do.

Similarly here, number three, client inquiries now have a process where they fill out an intake form. And then they're redirected to my Calendly. From that form submission then book a free 20-minute phone call, not a zoom call.

For me, phone calls feel like less pressure, both for me and the client, and it works for the initial discussion. A really big point here is that if I'm trying to prepare for a zoom call, I have to have a place where I can put my laptop down, be on camera, and make sure I'm quiet.

If I'm talking on the phone, I can even take a walking meeting. So it takes some pressure off of me. And the next two suggestions are tools that have made my life easier in the quest for more meaningful meetings.

The first is Loom, and the second is Airtable.

I've talked about Airtable before. So we'll start with Loom, Loom is a screen recording software. And when I tell you that this tool has changed the game for me, I am not kidding. It shows you at the end of each video, how many meetings you've saved.

My VA team, shout out to 8point8 if you all are listening, actually told me about it a few years ago, as we strategized how best to collaborate across time zones. And wow, does it make a difference?

It has a Chrome extension, which makes it super easy and the free version allows up to 25 Five Minute recordings in your library. I will link it in the show notes for you all because whether you work for yourself, whether you are communicating with team members across timezone, you know, big company, small company, I think it will help.

And the last tool is Airtable. Again, not sponsored by them. But this collaborative tool allows so much interaction across teams, that it eliminates the need for meetings, a lot of times together, having information in one efficient and effective place, being able to view the data in different ways and extrapolate findings from there. It is so priceless. Of course Monday.com, Asana, Trello, there are others and you have to find what works for you, I find that Airtable combines them all.

And for me, it allows so much automation and integrations that a lot of times I don't even need any other tools when collaborating with clients on events.

These tools may not allow you to have a full day without meetings, everybody's work expectations are different. Perhaps you're a salesperson, and literally, your job is to be in meetings all day.

But the more that you do not default to these, let's just add a meeting to the calendar sentiments, the easier it will be to set those boundaries consistently over time.

If you're having trouble figuring out which meetings to eliminate, it helps to make sure that you have an airtight agenda and the next steps that come out of each meeting.

Another tip, if your meetings are over 60 minutes long, consistently, that's a sign that you likely have more of an issue with collaboration in general across your team than just the need to eliminate or cut down on meetings.

Bloomberg, thank you so much for giving us so much to discuss this week and so much food for thought. What do you think about zoom meetings?

Are you inundated with them on your calendars? Is it just too much for you? What tools do you use to manage your calendar and make sure that you are working at your most efficient? We'd love to hear from you. I hope this week was helpful.

Can't wait to come back next month and we will be focused on health in April.

The ways that Type A+ People have to consider the implications of their behaviors when it comes to their health.

Have a great week. We'll talk soon.

The Type A+ Podcast is written and produced by me, Beth Lawrence.

Our music is composed by Dan “Dilemma” Thomas.

If you liked this podcast, please subscribe, share, and give us a five-star rating.

New episodes are released every week.

Thank you for listening!

Beth LawrenceComment