How To Hold Meetings and Keep Production Flowing

 

 

Tell us if this sounds familiar. You need everyone to attend a big meeting, or get on a conference call, which means everyone’s going to be away from their desks for a few hours. The meeting is important, but so is the work that the meeting will interrupt.

There are ways you can address both needs at work. Below are tips on how to hold meetings while still keeping production on track, by improving efficiency, automation and through the use of technology.

 

Efficiency

1. Review your internal processes. You might have some tasks that are part of your daily routine that you can do without. Once you know what they are, you can separate important tasks from ones that are no longer necessary.
2. Delegate. Be sure to communicate with your team about what they can do to help streamline projects. Know what you can do yourself, and what will require reinforcements.
3. Take breaks. This may sound contradictory, but sometimes you need to stop working to keep working. As Forbes says: “When sedentary, the enzyme lipoprotein lipase (LPL), responsible for breaking down fat in the bloodstream and converting it to energy, drops off significantly, causing fat cells to build. In short, a lack of movement equals a decline in energy.”
4. Plan your day around lunch. Many of us are sharper in the morning, so use that time for work that requires deep analysis and thought. Write reports and crunch numbers as soon as you sit down. After lunch, when you’ve refueled, focus on things that require you to interact and share ideas, such as meetings and conference calls.
5. Make a list. Put everything you need to do in order of priority and the time it will take. As you check off each task, you can discover which times of day are the most productive.

 

Automation

1. Automate social media tasks. Hootsuite is probably the most well-known, but there are many other social media apps and tools as well. For example, Buffer allows you to schedule posts according to a specific pattern. So if you wanted to, say, post weekdays at 10 a.m., Buffer can help you do that. Another platform, Dlvr.it, allows you to sync your site with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
2. Create templates for commonly used documents. Let’s say you send out the same type of invoice or letter every week. You can save time by creating a template for this, and then just need to fill in the appropriate names, dates and numbers.
3. Use online calendars in the Cloud and share them. Sitting in meetings can take up time, but so can scheduling meetings. By letting your colleagues and your clients know what you’ll be doing and when you’ll be doing it, you can save a lot of back and forth emails and calls.
4. Automate customer follow-up and similar tasks. After reviewing internal processes, you may find there are a number of reoccurring time wasting tasks you can automate in 30 minutes or less.
5. Create “canned” email responses for emails that require the same response time and again. That way you don’t have to type the same email every time you respond. Or better yet, if you are asked the same question time and again, create an FAQ page or document and publish it online or provide it to your colleagues, so the answers are on-hand and communication requirements are reduced.

 

Technology

1. Place checklists in the Cloud so you can take them with you and share them. Forgett allows you to share them or keep them private, and even lets you add animated gifs. And Checkli has many of the same features, and allows you to create PDF versions of your lists.
2. Get familiar with macros (aka shortcuts). Programs like Microsoft Word have macros as a built-in feature that lets users perform routine tasks automatically. It’s easy to create and customize them. Some are easy enough (control i for italics). Once you’ve got a handle on them, you’ll save time as you write. To learn more about creating macros for Microsoft Word, visit the Microsoft Office support page. And in the spirit of this piece, save this info as a document and share it with your colleagues and staff to help them streamline their needs.
3. If you want to learn how to make templates in Word, Excel or Powerpoint, your best bet is to see what Office has to say. Also, this article is useful because it focuses on team collaboration.
4. Use accounting software to streamline invoicing and billing tasks. It’s not necessary to manually generate invoices for clients that are billed the same amount every month for the same service.
5. Make use of labels, folders and tags in your email inbox. This helps to sort and organize items, and more importantly, it helps for speedy retrieval of messages.

Important things happen in your meetings, and it’s not a good idea to go into them worried about what you’ll be missing. By following a few of these tips on how to hold meetings, you’ll be able to cut down on some smaller tasks around the office in order to focus on larger ones in the board room.

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How to Get The Most Out Of A Work-Related Conference/Meeting

Attending work-related conferences can be useful or useless, depending on how you approach them. Approach them right and you can pick up new skills, learn about trends in your field, and make valuable networking contacts. Approach them wrong and they can end up merely being long, boring days away from home.
Here are 12 tips for getting the most of conferences.
1. Read through the agenda ahead of time and figure out what sessions you want to attend. Realize that you probably won’t be able to attend a session in every time slot throughout the day, so prioritize the ones you most want to attend. If you’re attending with a co-worker, consider dividing them up so that between the two of you, you’re covering more sessions. Similarly …
2. Read the exhibitors list ahead of time and make a list of people and companies you want to speak with. Otherwise, in a large exhibition hall, you may get overwhelmed and never make it to the people who you most wanted to talk to.
3. Ask questions in the sessions you attend. Don’t be shy about questioning the speakers about points you’re especially interested in or would like clarified. In fact, you’re actually doing the speakers a favor by asking questions; most speakers dread having disengaged audiences, and there’s nothing worse for a speaker than asking for questions and finding a silent room.
4. Practice introducing yourself in one sentence. You’re going to be doing this over and over when you meet new people, and you want it to be polished.
5. Bring business cards. You might not use cards much in the rest of your work life, but you’ll go through dozens at a conference when you’re meeting new people. And you’ll collect dozens too, so make sure to make a few notes on the back of each so that you remember who each person is once you’re back at your office.
6. Be approachable. Don’t spend all your time outside of conference sessions using your phone or immersed in reading material. By looking around you and looking open and engaged, you’ll make it more likely that someone else looking for someone to talk to will approach you.
7. Don’t be afraid to approach people yourself. Conferences are filled with people hoping to meet someone to talk to. You don’t even need an excuse; you can simply walk up and introduce yourself and ask about the other person. You can also ask whether they’ve been to any good sessions or have found any decent coffee nearby.
8. Wear comfortable shoes. You’re going to do a lot of standing around talking to people, and you might even end up standing in some sessions if they’re packed. And if the conference is in a large hotel or other large venue, you’ll do a lot of walking to get from your room to the conference halls, meals and so forth.
9. Don’t make nonwork plans for the evenings. You might think that traveling to a conference will be a great opportunity to catch up with your friend who lives in that city, but lots of networking will happen in the evening, often spontaneously. You want to be available for that last-minute dinner or outing.
10. Bring snacks in your purse or briefcase. Conferences often offer only overpriced convenience food, if even that. Plus, you might get caught up in a conversation with someone interesting and end up missing lunch; you’ll want to have a snack with you to eat discreetly during your next session.
11. Stay away from alcohol. At most, have only one or two drinks. If you find yourself hanging out in the venue’s bar with other conference attendees, ask the bartender for a mocktail or a seltzer water with lime.
12. When you’re back at your office, follow up with the people who you met at the conference. Email them to let them know you enjoyed meeting them and perhaps reference something you talked about. (Those notes on the back of their cards are helpful for this.)

 

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