Not everyone looks forward to meetings. “Death by meeting” is a typical complaint about them, with the main issue being their frequency and length. Despite many books written on the benefits of a meeting, they remain a point of contention for many. Metro Offices, the leading provider of quality meeting rooms, explains why you should start planning shorter meetings.
Why are Short Meetings More Productive?
Work usually takes up all the time that you allot for it. For this reason, keeping your meetings to 15 minutes or shorter is better. Scientifically, people can pay attention for approximately 10 to 18 minute before they start checking out. Which means, if you limit your meetings to this amount of time, you would get the maximum attention and productivity from your team.
This 18-minute max also has physiological roots. Since our bodies typically require large amounts of glucose and oxygen for the brain to process new information, keeping your employees in a short meeting allows them to absorb everything you have discussed. Any more than that, and they’ll feel physically fatigued and lose concentration.
Conducting your meetings in a professional meeting space also has wonderful effects on their productivity. Metro Offices can provide quality spaces for your company equipped with the necessary technology to make your meetings smoother and more efficient.
How Can You Keep Your Meetings Shorter?
Since a shorter meeting requires fewer resources with far more productive results, here’s how you can keep them to a minimum:
Only Have Meetings With a Single Goal. You can easily keep your meetings short when they have only one purpose. That way, there would be fewer things to discuss, and you would immediately get the feedback that you want. Consequently, everyone would understand the point of the meeting.
Unsocial Meetings. Meetings would go by much faster if the rest of your team already has a general idea of what the meeting would be about. In other words, socialize your content before the actual meeting with quick huddles, one-on-one conversations and office fly-bys. This also helps you gain input and consensus outside of the meeting context, so the goal of the meeting would be limited to being decisive.
Metro Offices understands how important a professional meeting or conference center is to your company. That’s why we provide high-quality rental spaces to our clients. We serve Arlington and the surrounding areas in VA. Call us today at (703) 871-5208 to learn more about our different office spaces.