The 1-hour Meeting Myth
I may be preaching to the choir, but meetings are generally a waste of time. You’d be surprised what you can get done via an email, IM conversation, and/or phone call. Jason Fried writes: “If you’re going to schedule a meeting that lasts one hour and invite 10 people to attend then it’s a ten-hour meeting, not a one-hour meeting. You are trading 10 hours of productivity for one hour of meeting time. And it’s probably more like 15 hours since there are mental switching costs associated with stopping what you’re doing, going somewhere else to do something else, and then resuming what you were doing before.”
[via Lifehacker]
3 Comments
There certainly is value in meeting with a person face to face. I don’t think you can overestimate the importance of developing a personal, human connection.
On the other hand, it’s also true that most routine meetings are unproductive, expensive, and prone to lasting much longer than needed — hence the saying, “It takes a darn good meeting to be better than no meeting at all.”
Routine meetings bring routine results.
Blake,
For the most part, I agree with your post. There isn’t anything that bugs me more than an unproductive meeting that lasts longer than needed.
However, on the other hand, I believe that a meeting in person can go a lot further than a phone call, email or IM conversation. There is a personal connection that happens when you spend time with a person… especially in my space.
Angel investors and VCs are very busy people. An email doesn’t have any pull and a phone call doesn’t produce the desired results. However, when I travel and schedule meetings… we become associates and (usually) friends for life.
Brock