Poor “Meeting Hygiene” Is Killing Your Soul, Productivity and Sanity

8 Steps to make your meetings amazing

Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash

One-hundred-twenty hours. That’s how much productivity you lose from poor meeting hygiene.

Does it sound ridiculous? Let’s do the math. These numbers are estimates, but reasonable in my twenty-five years of experience.

• You attend, on average, three meetings per day.
• You work two-hundred-forty days per year.
• Each meeting starts five minutes late.
• Each meeting loses an additional five minutes of productivity due to idle chit chat, pointless tangents, late attendees seeking updates, and irrelevant questions for the sake of asking questions.

3 (meetings per day) * 10 (minutes) * 240/60= 120 hours

Terrible meetings result from poor meeting hygiene. Ineffective leadership and an apathetic attitude are the chief causes.

The symptoms of poor meeting hygiene

• Your meetings never start on time.
• You endure several minutes of chit-chat before you dive into anything of substance.
• You deal with constant interruptions.
• Discussion meanders from topic to…