Buy Yourself Some Time!

“I choose you …. I choose this!”  Read this expression recently where someone was noting that they had chosen their way forward and they weren’t looking back.  No second guessing and basically waking up every day looking towards what change they could do, rather than looking in the rear view mirror.

While it is agreed you have to look forward, there’s nothing that stops you from doing a bit of analysis as you go forward to make sure you remain true to your choice.  Even the best laid plans have hiccups!

Recognize the need to plan in advance, rather than just jumping into it and not looking back.  For example, everyone talks about the need to communicate better.  Yet how often are we finding ourselves going from one meeting to another to a conference call with not enough time to even catch our breath? 

There is a need to plan our time in meetings before we go in.  But you literally just finished the previous meeting and you are supposedly ready to go for the next one, right now!

So buy yourself some time to get ready, to prepare and in doing so, making it more likely you will successfully finish on time.  One time buying idea would be to start the meeting at 15 min past the hour (i.e. 0915 hrs) or finishing 10 minutes before the hour (i.e. 0950 hrs). 

Keeping tight control of the time by sticking to the purpose of the meeting. If it’s an alignment meeting, don’t go into the weeds with too much detail.  If it’s a technical meeting, focus on the details and limit the breadth of the discussion.  Only you can decide how much detail or breadth but plan ahead with that 10 – 15 minutes and you are more likely to have a purposeful and successful meeting.

With these few extra minutes, you have created that moment to catch your breath, reflect on what was just covered or decisions just made PLUS you can switch gears and move on to the next discussion more focused on it, rather than on the last meet.

May your next meeting finish on time with properly discussed decisions to move forward!