Drink up and keep it brief

The Life: Hugh Culver, author of Give Me A Break, shares tips on managing the minutes in otherwise unproductive workplace meetings.

According to one Microsoft study, workers spend more than five-and-a-half hours each week stuck in meetings. istockphoto.com

Before we get started, please drink a full glass of water.

That is the strategy used by Caterina Fake, one of the co-founders of the photo-sharing website Flickr.com, to ensure meetings do not drag on and on. Those with full bladders tend to get straight to the point.

Last week, The Life tackled the challenges of scheduling a meeting. This week we work through how to manage the actual meetings themselves, including introducing Ms Fake's so-called "16-oz rule," which is designed to flush away those excessive minutes.

By at least some accounts, there is plenty of lost time in workplace meetings.

According to one Microsoft study of more than 38,000 people across 200 countries, workers spend more than five-and-a-half hours each week stuck in meetings, and a full 69 per cent believe these powwows are not productive.

As unusual as the 16-oz rule might sound, it is a corollary to Ms Fake's two-pizza rule. According to that measure, meetings should be small enough to feed everyone with just two pizzas. It's an idea Amazon.com's founder, Jeff Bezos, also endorses.

Anecdotal nuggets like these can be found in Hugh Culver's new book, Give Me A Break: The Art of Making Time Work for You. In it, he also shares other tips for making meetings more efficient:

Drop 20 per cent

Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fit the time allotted, writes Mr Culver. "In other words, a one-hour meeting will mysteriously tend to wrap up after about 55 minutes, while a 90-minute meeting will drag on until 80 minutes have passed," he adds. Try scheduling less time for meetings, and the strategy may help improve how quickly everything gets accomplished.

Lead with objectives

While typical agendas provide a chronology of events, such as "Bob will provide an update on the current export plan", try announcing the true purpose of the meeting first. "Even if you are not using agendas, you should still have a short list of [written or verbal] objectives for every meeting," suggests Mr Culver.

Get ramblers back on track

We've all encountered those individuals who share a story in a meeting, even when it has little relevance. But the next time someone speaks off topic, try interrupting politely and summarise what it is you think they are saying. "Most people will be quite happy if you interrupt and the attention is still on what they were talking about," writes Mr Culver. Be sure to show respect by repeating a few key points from what the person said, mentioning only what was related to the topic at hand, and then move on by turning the attention to someone else. One line Mr Culver suggests using: "Who else has an opinion on how we should progress from here?"

Make decisions

Conclude meetings by having each participant announce what they will be responsible for with their new commitment. "It quickly becomes obvious when there is no deadline, deliverables are vague, or when someone has taken on too much and will need help," writes Mr Culver.

Don't go

Determine whether going to a meeting is really making valuable use of time. You could always ask someone else to brief you afterward, or try out alternatives such as conference calls or webinars and see if those decrease time that would otherwise be spent on in-person sit-downs.