Andy Bounds | “I’m Conscious of Time”

“Meetings are rubbish. And then they overrun”

So said one of my friends recently.

I’ve already shared lots of Tips about how we can stop meetings being rubbish (maybe even making some of them – get this – good!)

But how can we stop them overrunning?

Well, here’s a simply way to do it:

And that’s it!

In a touch more detail…

When you say “I’m conscious of time”, everyone becomes aware of the time. They look at their clock. They see there’s 10 minutes to go
If you want, you can also reinforce the meeting must end soon by using the delightful corporate phrase “hard stop”. Something like: “I know we have a hard stop at 10am, so let’s make sure we finish on time for everyone”
During these final ten minutes, you can do the two things we should do in every meeting – (1) agree any actions, and (2) schedule the date of the next meeting. (This is what I call the 2Ds – what are we DOING? And what DATE are we next meeting?)

Better still: these 2Ds rarely take the full ten minutes. Which means you might even finish the meeting early! Now, wouldn’t that be nice…

Action Point

Every meeting you attend, make sure you know it’s scheduled end time
And then, ten minutes before it, say “I’m conscious of time”
Do this every meeting – and they will all end on time. And with people agreeing to DO actions, and with the DATE of the next meeting in everyone’s calendars

“I’m Conscious of Time”