Are effective meetings and good time management the same?

For many years, I’ve been training and speaking on the topics of personal time management or how to have more productive meetings. So it was not a surprise to me when I sat down at my computer for blogging something helpful and enlightening to share that my brain pulled out one of the things I get asked about so often in these sessions. I found that this is not only my pet peeves, but often a mystery to others as well. Read on, see if the questions don’t stir emotions, and let’s find out if you think you have the answer to the conundrum.

Meetings and Time Management have most likely been around since before the industrial revolution. Are they complementary or exclusive business issues? A pet peeve of mine and others is often reflected towards people who are really good at managing their own time, but seem to allow loss of time control in meetings. Meetings should have a plan just as individuals have a to-do list and scheduled appointments. For meetings this plan is called an agenda, which is a group to-do list with appointed times for each item. Shouldn’t educated time managers consider meetings as group time management and act accordingly? What can we do to help each other have better meetings? What can we do to better understand the value of the time of other’s we work with?

Hopefully, voicing this pet peeve and my associated ramblings has gotten all of us to think about this business issue. Please compose your thoughts and answer my questions for yourself. Then if you feel like sharing your thoughts, add your comments to this blog. Remember – I’m interested in your perspective too.