As my first post on a new blog - and hopefully not also the last post, like so many other blogs - I've had some thoughts on meetings and their associated etiquette brewing for quite a while. In fact, the following was outlined at least four years prior to this post, so it seems rather fitting that it finally arrives.
Meetings are the bane of almost every professional's life - and as soon as you're past a magic number of employees or team members, they become simultaneously endemic and necessary. We often find ourselves mired in meetings where we're merely stakeholders, or perhaps are required for just a small portion of the alotted time. Rather than the fulfilling and informative affairs they are supposed to be, meetings become things to be dreaded and avoided.
Or, worse still, they become a drain on your time and energy and achieve absolutely nothing: I frequently find I have designated the first day of the week as "Meeting Monday" - the time I have available for coding or other directly productive work is reduced to four of the eight hours I'm contracted for.
Yet with a few simple rules or considerations, we can refashion our meetings and reduce the amount of wasted time and the boredom - oh, the boredom! - and recover a bit of our day and productivity.