Let’s assume you attend 4-7 meetings a day. Let’s further assume that you get 2-3 to dos per meeting.
That’s 8-21 new tasks per day that you need to work on.
Usually you don’t manage to complete or address all the tasks.
The tasks will pile up and leave a big list of open items by the end of the week.
That’s why some people still work on their open points on saturday so that monday doesn’t start badly.
Some people still manage to work on the open points in the evening hours during the week.
However, this is usually associated with overtime. The quality of your work also decreases at the end of the day.
So there is a better way to handle this.
A very effective method that I have observed with various CEOs and managers is „the blank sheet“
That means you never walk away from a meeting if all the points of the meeting have not been processed and addressed.
The trick is to use the last 5-8 minutes of the meeting to work on your new tasks. You should not take any open items from the meeting with you. Your goal is to adress the new tasks by the end of the meeting.
Since most of the tasks in meetings involve gathering information and requesting status, this can be done very easily with emails.
I have been using this method for years and it works so well.
Before using it I was often totally stressed and overwhelmed with all the to dos from meetings.
So always leave meetings with a blank sheet of paper.
You can also ask if you can address the new tasks for the last 5 minutes of the meeting in case anyone is surprised that you are typing on your laptop.
This method has the huge advantage that you leave the meeting carefree and do not have to carry the open points around with you all day.
Try ist tomorrow! You will be surprised how well it works
Need help?
Contact me: thomas@germanproductivity.com