Marie Kondo’s 6 Rules for Tidying Your Meetings
Because, believe it or not, meetings can spark joy
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My name is Conor. I’m shaping the future of how teams work together at Hugo, centralized meeting notes that connect with your favorite tools.
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Our meetings at work, like our homes, have become disorganized and cluttered. People tune out in meetings or skip out entirely. Therefore, I propose 'Marie Kondo’s 6 Rules for Tidying Your Meetings' Because, Yes, meetings CAN spark joy.
Organizations across the United States collectively spend 15% of their time in meetings. That's a price tag of $37 billion per year, not including 4+ hours per week that employees spend preparing for meetings.
We can adapt Marie Kondo's rules to tidy up how we meet at work. Marie Kondo’s basic rules are:
Commit yourself to tidying up
Imagine your ideal lifestyle
Finish discarding first
Tidy by category, not location
Follow the right order
Ask yourself if it ‘sparks joy’
Commit yourself to meeting differently
Meetings are a thorny topic. Changing your meeting culture may seem hard. But remember, nobody likes ineffective meetings. Be a leader. Be a hero. You can do this. Mentally prepare yourself for the task ahead.
Imagine what you will do with your new time
Marie Kondo reminds us to clarify WHY we want to change. What kind of meetings do you want? Picture your team. Instead of drained and bored like usual, visualize them coming out of every meeting full of energy and enthusiasm.
Discard entire meetings list
Start with entire meetings that are too long, too frequent, or simply not necessary at all. Thank them for their contributions, and let them go. Where can you simply send an email, do the work, or cut the duration?
Decide what participants to keep
Does everyone need to be there? Ask whether every person invited to the meeting is bringing something unique. If your organization has a good culture around taking and sharing meeting notes, chances are there are attendees who can skip.
Follow the correct order
Change the agenda before the meeting. If you have to discuss the agenda for a meeting at the meeting, you’ve already lost.
Does the agenda item spark joy?
It’s time to decide not what to discard, but what to keep. Keep only what aspects of the meeting actually make it effective and useful for its purpose. Let go of rambling updates. Keep decisions.
By tidying up the meetings on your calendar, you and your team are ready to take a streamlined approach to meetings. Chances are, you’re going to get hours back for other work along the way.
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📚 Reads of the Week
Solving Online Events
We’ve been suddenly thrown in a world of online events. I’ve had a feeling that there’s been something missing from these talks, and Benedict Evans does a great job here articulating what those things are.
Implementing Search at Twitter
It’s kind of comforting that even the most effective tech companies in the world still struggle with the interplay between teams in a large organization. This is a cool inside-look at a scenario that is all too common.
Productivity Hack for Email
Did anyone else not know this was possible? I haven’t set it up for myself yet, but this is one of the cooler little hacks I’ve seen recently.
Thanks for reading Future of Teamwork this week! Did anything stand out? I’d love to hear about it. Reply to this email or tweet at me and let’s chat 😁
Until next time,
Conor