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Ways to overcome back-to-back meetings

Overcoming Unwanted Back-To-Back Meetings

Even if you want to avoid those back-to-back meetings, you are not always in control of your calendar. Sometimes, you have no option but to schedule one meeting after another— it can be dull and boring and could lead to stress and unproductivity. However, we have useful tips for you to overcome these unwanted back-to-back meetings. 

5 tips to manage back-to-back meetings

Back-to-back meetings are horrifying. So, we have listed down the ways how to survive back-to-back meetings without going insane.

Make use of alert apps

The use of alert apps is a great way to remind everyone that it’s time to finish things up on time. An alert app will send a notification a few minutes before the meeting is scheduled to end. This will prevent you from lapses in your back-to-back meetings.

Improve scheduling

If you can avoid scheduling back-to-back meetings, avoid it! And as much as possible, if you are in charge of a meeting, limit it only to half an hour and make sure that in your schedule, you have the time to take breaks. In addition, speak to the participants in advance and let them know how long you intend the meeting to last.

Listen to good music

Back-to-back meetings can be very stressful and tiresome. Listening to your preferred genre of music has a significant power to help reduce your stress and can lighten your mood. You can listen to some good music in some ‘me-time’ between meetings. Consider creating a playlist when you have free time so that you can save time from browsing your preferred songs on the Internet.

Select the meetings you attend

Be selective about the meetings you attend. Identify which meetings you really need to attend and what meetings are less important for you to personally attend. In addition, before attending a meeting, you have to make sure that you know what’s its detailed agenda and why the meeting needs to take place.

Don’t multitask

When attending a meeting, avoid multitasking as this can divide your attention and can cause mistakes. If you think that this particular meeting is dull and out of your interest, remind yourself of it and if you’ve been asked to attend similar meetings, you can send someone else on your behalf. 

Take time to relax

Relax when you have the opportunity. Ensure that your meeting ends on time and make use of the short breaks to refresh. As much as possible, avoid extending the time length of your meetings and if there is a chance to shorten your meetings from 60 minutes to 50 minutes, take that opportunity. 

Major effects of back-to-back meetings

Back-to-back meetings are tiring. Without doing something about it, you might end up being burned out and less productive. Here are the major effects of back-to-back meetings you need to be aware of.

Decreases your ability to focus and engage

Back-to-back meetings can decrease your ability to do your best work. According to the research conducted by Microsoft, when a participant has no break from back-to-back meetings, brainwave patterns showed a negative level of frontal alpha asymmetry which causes the participants to be less engaged and focused in the meeting. 

Builds up stress

Transitioning between meetings can be a source of high stress. When a participant doesn’t take a break from one meeting to another, it increases the stress level to spike. This could be when you’re going to end a meeting, you know that there will be a next one to attend to, and you’ll use your brain to think hard about something else. 

Takeaways

Back-to-back meetings are sometimes an unavoidable part of doing a business. When you have no option but to attend back-to-back meetings, remind yourself of the ways mentioned above on how to manage it and make sure to always treat yourself to that much-needed break. After all, meetings should contribute to success and not a cause for being less focused and distracted.

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