Productivity tip #6: Calculate the cost of your meeting and act accordingly
/Planning a meeting?
Multiply the number of minutes you plan on speaking by the number of people attending the meeting and ask yourself:
Is the information that I am presenting worthy of the amount of salary and lost productivity that your meeting will cost?
For example, if you are conducting a meeting with 20 people that will last 90 minutes, you just cost the organization 30 hours of labor.
There are times when this is a wise investment.
There are many, many times when it is not.
Before calling a meeting, ask yourself the following questions:
- How many hours of labor will this cost my organization?
- How much is one hour of labor worth to my organization, both in monetary terms as well as lost opportunity costs.
- Is the goal of the meeting worth the investment?
- Are these hours and dollars better served in some other way?
- Could the information being conveyed in this meeting be disseminated in a more efficient way?
If the numbers and the rationale equate, conduct your meeting.
If they don’t, cancel your meeting immediately for the sake of productivity.
