Ready to have more productive meetings with your team? Here are 4 things you should add to your company conference room that will make your meetings more effective:
A Timer
The biggest complaint about corporate meetings is that they are a waste of time—literally. Experts agree that you should always start your meetings exactly on time (don’t wait for latecomers) and end on time. While adding a clock to the wall helps with keeping track of actual time, consider adding a timer to the table to countdown the minutes—giving the team a 2-minute warning before the meeting is to end. At Google, they keep a giant timer on the wall. “It’s literally a downloadable timer that runs off a computer and is projected 4 feet tall,” writes BusinessWeek. “The timer exerts a subtle pressure to keep meetings running on schedule.”
Technology Bin
While a laptop may be needed to project a presentation, keep a decorative bin or basket by the conference room door where meeting attendees can leave their tech devices. As soon as attendees walk into the room, have them turn off there phones, tablets, etc. and place them in the bin. This will help you avoid interruptions and keep people focused on the task at hand.
Create a Parking Lot
Getting distracted by side conversations or ideas can lead us off our agenda and keep us from being effective with our meeting time. Create a space in your conference room for “parking lot ideas”—these are the things that come up during your discussions that are good points and issues, but do not necessarily need to be addressed during this particular meeting. The space can be a white board or even a flipchart where you write down the thoughts and get to them if time allows (and if the right people are assembled). Didn’t get to your “parking lot items”? Be sure to document the issues and find ways to address them in the future.
Essential Oils
Yes, essential oils are not just for the home. “Our sense of smell can powerfully affect our mood, mindset and thus our productivity,” writes Lifehack.org. If adding candles or incense to the work environment is not an option (many people do not like added scents in the office), keep some essential oils in a conference room drawer along with some cotton balls. Encourage employees to add a few drops of their favorite scent to keep them focused and creative during meetings. Some great oils to include: pine, cinnamon, peppermint and citrus.
Talk to us: What is one thing you do to make your meetings more productive?
image courtesy of flickr CC/banspy