How to Host a Successful Meeting

          Have you ever attended or hosted a meeting, only to be disgusted with your fellow attendees' behavior or the complete waste of time?  Wait!  Before you schedule your next meeting as a host or attendee against your better judgement, consider the following.
          Meetings should only be held in two situations:  collaboration or conversation.  Any other circumstances can be taken care of with a memo or a short power point.  If you must hold a meeting, follow these four steps and attendance and attitude will improve:

1. Send an agenda and your meeting materials the day before.  You may even send a task or reminder set the day before so that people arrive to the meeting informed and ready to go.
2. Be on time and stick to the meeting time frame.  If the discussion looks like it will go long, reschedule that item for another time.  This is being respectful of other peoples' time, which will be much appreciated.
3. Invite the right people.  Check your attendee list, are you missing any key decision makers?  Do you have any extra attendees who don't need to participate in the discussion, only be informed of the results?
4. Send a follow-up with a summary of decisions and assignments that came from the meeting.

If you are not the meeting coordinator, but you often find yourself attending useless meetings, try these steps to manage your meeting holder:

• Start meetings on time.  If the meeting holder is late, wait 10 minutes, then send a polite request to reschedule.
• Request an agenda and meeting materials the day before the meeting.  At first, you may not get anything back.  Stick with it, if the host knows that you are going to request information beforehand, eventually they will catch on and send it with the invite.
• Keep the meeting time limited.  If a particular topic goes long, suggest moving it to another time.  If the meetings you attend often extend past their time limit, politely excuse yourself from the meeting and offer to contact someone to get the information you will miss.  Sometimes just making this gesture will wrap up a meeting that's dragging.
• Send a follow-up email outlining the decisions and action steps that you will be taking as a result of the meeting.

There are just some people out there who are habitually bad meeting participants.  The best you can do is follow the above steps and keep your cool.

A free resource to help plan, organize, and collaborate your meetings is MeetingKing.  It's an online tool to create agendas, store and share documents, track tasks, and keep a record of past meetings.  

The Busy Habit

          As a small business owner, you know what busy is.  Often, you are wearing multiple hats and performing jobs in which you have little or no training or background.  You know you'll figure it out eventually, or grow your business and hire someone else to do it.  In the meantime, you are spending a lot of time learning new skills and, well, running a business.
          Busy is an attitude, not a state of being.  Creating habits to help you stay organized and manage your schedule can reduce your stress level, and give you confidence in your day.  You will probably have as much, or more, to do; but you will feel like it is manageable.  

• First, write out your to do list, highlight the important tasks (no more than five), cross off the rest, then store the list in your drawer.  The To Do List exercise is a good tool to focus your thoughts and help you keep your eye on the big ticket items, but you can burn a lot of time tending to it and a long list can make you feel defeated before you've even started.  At the end of the day, get out the list and rewrite it for the next day, adding any tasks that came in during the day, but save the highlighting for when you are fresh the next morning.  Put a big check mark next to completed items and enjoy that satisfying feeling.  
• Second, set realistic expectations early and often.  Your customers, suppliers, and employees may demand more from your business than you are prepared or capable of giving.  Know your limitations, communicate that, and then stick to them.  You may have to get in the habit of considering your calendar and capabilities before you accept a new obligation.  Practice saying "sure, but can I get that to you tomorrow (or another reasonable time frame)?"
• Last, use your email program to organize and schedule your time, then commit to sticking to it.  Most programs come with reminders, tasks, and the ability to move emails to your calendar.  Categorize your emails and tasks during your To Do List exercise.  Block time on your calendar for administrative tasks, phone calls, meetings, and follow up.  When you are obligating yourself or your business, open the calendar and use it.

If you keep these three points in mind as you work through your day, how you spend your time becomes easy.  Just like a diet or new exercise regime, being organized is a habit.  The initial effort takes time, but eventually it will become a background part of your day.  If you find yourself slipping, or you have a "busy" day, take a deep breath, remember that tomorrow is another chance, and forgive yourself.