Distractions steal your time and sap your energy, we all know this. In life, and in meetings.
Colleagues needing ‘a quick minute’ when you’re in the office. The doorbell when you’re working at home. Pinging phones, Teams, Slack, Whatsapp, emails and all the other communication channels… there are a hundred different ways to lose focus in a meeting. Not news to anyone, but we were still staggered to read that distractions in online and face-to-face meetings cost the UK economy over £20billion in 2023.
The main causes of distraction cited were boredom, tiredness, and having a busy mind, with 80 per cent of workers admitting losing concentration during meetings. But how people meet is significant.
There are loads of Ps relating to meetings. We think three might be enough.
- Purpose – have few, but better, meetings. This is big one. Ask yourself these questions. Why are we meeting? What do we want to achieve? What needs to be agreed in order to achieve that goal?
- People – does everyone need to be there? Do you have the key decision makers? Does everyone know what to expect and what’s expected of them? Have they had the necessary information ahead of time, in order to be present and focussed in the meeting itself?
- Place. Aha. Of course, we are big advocates of offsite meetings. Wallacespaces are designed to help you focus and achieve your goals. But. We also love other offsite meetings. We recently took a sales meeting to the park. The change of scenery set an expectation that we weren’t just going through the motions. Fresh location, fresh thinking. Try going for a walk, if there are just a few of you. Innovation happens when you look at a problem differently. Sometimes a change of space is all it takes.
Achieve more – get out of the office!
