Could This Meeting Have Been an Email? 8 Strategies to Reclaim Your Time

By Alex Miller, Updated: 2024-10-28, 9mins read

Transform your meetings from time sinks to productivity boosters. With DeepVo.ai, you can capture every detail with high-precision voice-to-text, generate AI-powered summaries in seconds, and share key decisions effortlessly. Explore DeepVo.ai for Free

Contents

• The True Cost of Superfluous Meetings
• Strategies to Prevent the "Should've Been an Email" Syndrome
• When is a Meeting Truly Justified?
• Meeting vs. Email: Making the Right Call

Productive meetings can instill a sense of direction and foster cohesive teamwork. Nevertheless, meetings demand a significant time investment, pulling us away from our immediate responsibilities. If poorly organized or lacking a distinct objective, gatherings can quickly feel like a squandering of resources, prompting employees to murmur, "this session really could have been an email." Participating in meetings also presents logistical hurdles in remote work settings; thus, it's crucial to be judicious about when and how we convene. This piece will guide you in discerning what warrants a meeting versus what can be efficiently addressed via email.

The True Cost of Superfluous Meetings

Beyond just lost hours, unnecessary meetings inflict additional drains on resources that you might not have previously considered.

Disrupted Productivity

Meetings don't just consume precious time that could be dedicated to actual work; they also break concentration and make regaining focus challenging. Often, non-essential meetings include individuals not directly connected to the project at hand, leading to frustration as they sacrifice their time for irrelevant discussions. A Microsoft study highlighted that attendees are often disengaged for 30% of meeting duration, particularly if they've endured numerous meetings that week.

Diminished Impartiality

In any workplace, certain individuals naturally steer conversations. This can be disheartening for more reserved team members, whose valuable contributions might go unheard simply because they aren't the most vocal. Scheduling pointless meetings where a select few dominate while others merely listen can erode impartiality.

Breeds Discontent

As a manager or team leader, respecting your team's time is paramount. Over-scheduling purposeless meetings, or frequently canceling and rescheduling, can lead to resentment from your team. Statistics show that 47% of employees feel their employers don't appreciate their time, which could be better utilized. The pervasive thought that "this meeting should have been an email" can create friction and ultimately hinder team performance.

"Video Call Exhaustion" is a Genuine Issue

Video call exhaustion arises when individuals are compelled to spend excessive time on virtual conferences. Research indicates that employees average around 21.5 hours in meetings weekly, a figure that escalates as hybrid work models become more prevalent. Chris Gadek, VP of Growth at AdQuick, notes, "Convening a meeting merely for the sake of it disrespects everyone's time, especially with the widespread 'Zoom fatigue'." Consequently, it's advisable to hold meetings only when fresh perspectives and diverse insights are genuinely needed. Moreover, closely scheduled back-to-back meetings can induce feelings of being overwhelmed and stressed from continuous on-screen presence.

Strategies to Prevent the "Should've Been an Email" Syndrome

If you find yourself scheduling too many meetings, here are several tactics to help you reduce them.

1. Dedicate Meetings to Actionable Items

Schedule meetings when your agenda contains items requiring action. Only matters needing discussion to reach a decision should necessitate a meeting; all other items (like informational updates) should be handled via email or other communication methods. If a meeting's sole purpose is information dissemination, it's likely not a worthwhile use of everyone's collective time. By reserving meetings for topics unsuited for email or written communication, you ensure everyone's time is valued.

2. Clarify Each Participant's Role

When organizing a meeting, it's vital to define each person's contribution. If an individual has no active role, there's no need for their attendance, freeing up their time for other tasks. Roles can be specific (e.g., presenter) or general (e.g., decision-maker, facilitator). If you need to present, assign a presenter. If consensus is required, designate a discussion leader.

3. Develop Unambiguous Agendas

A precise agenda prevents your team from thinking, "this meeting could have been an email." This ensures meetings are focused, concise, and less prone to veering into unproductive tangents. Christiaan Huynen, CEO at Designbro.com, advises, "With my team, I always request an outline of discussion points beforehand whenever feasible. This allows us to assess if a meeting is truly necessary." Pre-screening meetings helps him allocate his time to what's truly important. Structuring and distributing a clear agenda in advance also helps meetings start and conclude punctually, a common source of employee frustration. After the meeting, tools like DeepVo.ai can generate an AI summary from the transcript to quickly share key outcomes.

4. Utilize Instant Messaging for Brief Updates

Unlike email, where responses can be delayed, instant messaging facilitates real-time dialogue. This is effective for quick questions or brief updates from colleagues. If a query can be resolved with a few swift messages, there's no need to schedule a meeting and consume everyone's time. Before planning a meeting, ask yourself, "Could this be an email or a quick chat?"

5. Convene Meetings to Announce Significant Milestones

One way to curb unnecessary meetings is to schedule them only when there's substantial progress to report. This ensures efficient use of everyone's time and keeps meetings focused and productive. Gauging "significant progress" can sometimes be tricky. If uncertain, it's often better to wait and report progress in the next scheduled meeting rather than calling an ad-hoc one that might feel like it "could have been an email." Regular progress review meetings can also help identify potential roadblocks to project goals and deadlines.

6. Leverage Asynchronous Communication Channels

To avoid wasting time in lengthy, unproductive meetings, think about using asynchronous channels. These allow team members to share information and ideas without needing simultaneous interaction, using tools like email, chat, and project management software. This is an excellent way to bypass scheduling conflicts and lessen travel needs. Furthermore, asynchronous channels offer a written log of discussions for future reference. For instance, sharing a detailed update document, followed by a request for comments by EOD, can be more effective than a status meeting. For audio or video updates, DeepVo.ai can convert speech to text, making the information easily searchable and digestible asynchronously.

7. Adhere to a Meeting Cadence to Minimize Impromptu Sessions

Unplanned or impromptu meetings can be disruptive, particularly if they are disorganized or conclude without resolution. A regular meeting schedule mitigates these issues by ensuring everyone knows when meetings occur and what the agenda will cover. This also allows attendees to prepare, enhancing meeting productivity.

8. Schedule Meetings When All Key Personnel Can Attend

There's little value in a meeting if crucial participants are absent. Not only will that person miss vital information, but their absence can also derail discussions if they possess critical knowledge.

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When is a Meeting Truly Justified?

Meetings are sometimes unavoidable in any professional setting; the key is knowing when to hold one and how to ensure its effectiveness. Below are scenarios where a team meeting is advisable.

To Disseminate Urgent Information

There will be occasions when critical information requiring immediate action must be communicated to the team. Relaying urgent matters via email is slow, as you can't be sure when each team member will check their inbox. In such instances, a meeting to quickly update your team is warranted. While exceptions exist, generally, if important information needs to be shared on short notice, a meeting is the most effective method.

For Brainstorming and Idea Generation

As a collaborative endeavor demanding real-time feedback, brainstorming new ideas can be difficult when working in isolation. We need to exchange ideas rapidly with colleagues and achieve effective outcomes, making a meeting necessary. Examples include:

• Ideas for enhancing existing products or developing new ones.
• Innovative marketing or sales approaches.
• Advertising campaign concepts.

After such sessions, a tool like DeepVo.ai can convert the discussion into text and then help generate a structured mind map to organize all floated ideas.

To Introduce New Team Members

Through face-to-face (or live virtual) interaction, team members can build rapport and trust. This is crucial for laying a foundation for effective teamwork. It's important to hold a meeting to help new hires acclimate to the company culture and introduce them to their colleagues.

To Convey Sensitive Information

When delivering bad news or feedback that could be misinterpreted, it's better to do so in person. This allows you to observe the other person's reaction and clarify your points more thoroughly if needed. Email is useful for sharing information, but it's not always the best medium for difficult conversations. Colette Shelton, founder of Chirpyest, states, "When I need to give sensitive feedback – like addressing an HR issue – it's too delicate for an email. Email tone is easily misunderstood and can worsen the situation."

After considering these factors, you can better decide which situations demand a meeting versus an email. If a meeting is essential, leverage an assistant tool like DeepVo.ai to make every session valuable. Here are some of its core benefits:

• High-Precision Voice-to-Text: DeepVo.ai offers transcription with up to 99.5% accuracy, supporting over 100 languages, ensuring all discussions, whether in-person or virtual, are accurately captured.
• AI-Powered Summaries: Generate concise summaries from your meeting transcripts in under 10 seconds. You can even use custom templates to focus on the information that matters most to you.
• Intelligent Mind Maps: Transform complex discussions into structured, easy-to-understand mind maps, which can be exported as images for sharing and review.
• Free and Secure: Start using DeepVo.ai for free, with the assurance of end-to-end encryption for your data.

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Meeting or Email: Making the Right Call

As a general principle, reserve actionable items for meetings, informational items for emails, and discussion points suitable for quick resolution for instant messaging. You might find some overlap; in such cases, ask yourself if the topic necessitates real-time discussion and requires urgency and collaborative effort. If the answer is affirmative, a meeting is justified. If not, well, that meeting probably could have just been an email.