If I knew how many hours I have spent in meetings in my career, I would want to cry. A few years ago, I go fed up and started to try some uncommon tactics to get more time back. I want to share three things that might get you out of a few or at least cut down the time of the meetings you are in each week.

Three things to try:

1. Ask if it's necessary: If you went to spend $1,000 on a training, chances are some people in your organization might freak out. However, pretty much anyone can host a 30 minute weekly meeting with 5 people. The latter costs $10,000 a year and nobody bats an eye. If you find yourself saying "that could have been an email" make the suggestion to try doing it as an email for a week. All you have to lose is a bad meeting that wastes your time.
2. Use Parkinson's law : Every 30 minute meeting should be  to 20, every 60 minute meting should be 45 minutes. What this will do is force people to stay on point and make sure things move along smoothly. Going back to back all day is a great way to turn your brain to mashed potatoes and never get anything meaningful done.
3. Use collaboration tools: Slack can be a time waster. If used the right way you can cut down meetings significantly. A lot of meetings start out with a status update. Use slack for this instead. If you have a team on a project, add everyone to a channel and have them add an update every time there is one. Information moves freely and you skip the show and tell for 30 minutes a week.

If you have any other ideas, PLEASE share.

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