Out of necessity small business owners are often jacks of all trades, which means effective time management is very important…
Long and drawn out meetings can suck up your time, so only hold meetings if and when necessary and strive to make them relevant and effective. Always ensure goals are set and followed through.
Preparation
Circulate an agenda before the meeting – it’ll allow attendees to plan their input and conduct any extra research. Allow attendees to add matters to the agenda prior to the meeting, though you can also review it at the beginning to see if they want to make any changes.
Maintain focus
Stick to your agenda otherwise you may find the meeting heading off in all sorts of directions. Make it clear what you want to get out of the meeting, why it has been called and why each of the participants is there. If some attendees don’t need to be present for the entire meeting, get their matters out of the way first and let them go. Be firm and don’t let individuals dominate all discussions. If it’s a lengthy meeting schedule breaks. Make sure all cellphones are off and that your meeting won’t be interrupted. Urgent calls can be picked up during the scheduled breaks.
Watch the time
If item no.1 on the agenda is taking up more time than expected, you’ll have to encourage some sort of conclusion and steer attendees towards the next point.
Follow up
At the end of the meeting summarise by detailing the specific actions that must be taken following the meeting. Set dates for all actions. Someone should have been tasked with taking notes during the meeting and distributing them afterwards. Email the list onto all attendees and be sure to produce the checklist at your next meeting to see that all tasks have been completed.
Remember the meeting won’t run itself, so be prepared to take charge. It’s your valuable time that will be wasted by letting it run on. And, of course there’s the time of the other attendees as well…
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