Meeting Agenda Template. Monday Tip: Candy for meetings. Last week’s tip was about creating positive meetings and so is this week’s. Only this tip is really, really simple. Ready: Bring a bowl of candy to a meeting today. That’s it. Bring candy to a meeting. And share it, obviously, I didn’t mean for you to sit there gorging yourself with everyone else looking on enviously. Bring candy that makes it hard to speak. Try to avoid the heavy stuff like donuts and danish – they give people a heavy sugar rush that makes them hyper at first and then tired and apathetic after 30 minutes. The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start.
Previous monday tips. How to get people to arrive on time for meetings. It bugs me a little when meetings don’t start on time. I’m fairly punctual myself and while I have no problem waiting five minutes for a meeting to start, it pains me to see ten people waiting fifteen minutes for one or two other people who’re late. It’s particularly annoying when it’s the same people who’re late every time. Also, when some people are habitually late other participants start thinking “hey, meetings never start on time anyway, I’ll drop in ten minutes late.”
It’s a downward slide from there :o) Here are three steps you can take to get your meetings started on time – including one slightly weird suggestion that works amazingly well.1: Agree what “The meeting starts at 3PM” means What does “We meet at 3″ mean? Different groups can have different standards but it’s a lot easier when everyone in the group has the same standard. Five weeeeeeeeird tips for great meetings. Meetings aren’t exactly the most popular workplace activity, as illustrated by this passage from the book jPod by Douglas Coupland: Here’s my theory about meetings and life; the three things you can’t fake are erections, competence and creativity. That’s why meetings become toxic—they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes.
One of the most common creativity-faking tactics is when someone puts their hands in prayer position and conceals their mouth while they nod at you and say, “Mmmmmmm. Web company 37signals consider meetings harmful because: I kinda agree. Last year, The Guardian mentioned a study that showed that meetings make people very unhappy at work, and that the more meetings one has to attend and the more time one spends in meetings, the greater the negative effects. So what is a good meeting? Efficient – So stuff gets done! No. Nail Meetings Down Tight - Stepcase Lifehack. Meetings can have lots of loose flow to them. They start a little late because people show up a little late. There’s that spot where you haven’t seen Jumpha in a while and you ask about her children. You pass out the agenda and people face-down a while browsing it and shuffling papers. Some folks are reading and answering mail via their BlackBerrys.
I think that’s all crap. You can fantasize all you want about the whiteboard meetings with all the gorgeous visualizations and all that, but those are truly the rarity, aren’t they? Meetings are where people hash out status, assign work, and make snap decisions. Publish the agenda as early as possible. You ARE the authority at meetings you call. –Chris Brogan writes about self-improvement and productivity at [chrisbrogan.com] .