Ed’s seven tips for better meetings–bang on!

How much time do you spend in meetings?  I think “too much” is a universal answer.  Check out Ed Lee’s tips …

where we were bemoaning the amount of time we “wasted” in meetings.

Thankfully, my meeting load isn’t as overbearing as it has been but I can remember getting in to work at 7am, doing actual work until 9am, and then being in various meetings until 4pm before working the requisite overtime to get through the rest of the work I had to do.

I’m not sure how much of that 7 hours was wasted but I’m sure it was a high proportion.

So from my experiences, here are the BMBY top seven ways to have a productive meeting.
Source: Seven tips on how to have a productive meeting « Blogging Me Blogging You

The best, IMHO, are stand up meetings (no chairs) meetings in places outside the norm (I think a pub meeting is a great idea), and making sure distractions are reduced to a minimum (I’m not sure about turning off the cell phone, but I switch mine to phone only so only call get through and not all the e-mail beeping).

How do you survive meetings?  Besides the coffee and donuts. ;-).