With 2022 around the corner, now is the perfect time to take stock of what we’ve learned about meetings and what can make them awesome. What can you do to make your meetings soar? Here are 12 ideas:

1) Start and end your meetings on time

2) Include a purpose, goal, or agenda (PGA) in every meeting, even 1:1’s

3) Build recovery into your daily schedule by scheduling your meetings in 25 or 50-minute increments (or if you must, 80). If you already have pre-scheduled 30/60/90 minute meetings, use Time Machine to build-in recovery in just a few clicks.

4) Keep your camera on in remote/hybrid meetings

5) Discuss in the afternoon, decide in the morning. Decision-oriented meetings work best before 12pm.

6) If you organize a meeting, ensure that there’s active participation across all participants. Otherwise, that meeting could probably be an email.

7) Limit your meeting size to 7 people or less

8) Revisit the frequency of your weekly or bi-weekly meetings (hint: they are probably too frequent)

9) Revisit the agendas for your weekly or bi-weekly meetings (hint: they are probably stale)

10) Encourage feedback from your meeting participants post-meeting

11) Ensure that your meetings have a gender balance – for meetings with 5 or more people, you should strive to have a minimum of 2 people per identified gender

12) Decline meeting invites if they have too many people or lack an agenda, and cancel meetings if you have a low meeting acceptance rate

13) (BONUS): As learned from one of our clients, if a meeting topic goes on for too long, call an ELMO (Enough, Let’s Move On)