How can you use mindfulness to schedule meetings effectively?

Before arranging any meeting, You must have a clear objective for the meeting. Set a pre rules to create a meeting, Some of the rules we have in my team are: - More than three persons are required to attend - A topic between more than one department - What is the objective and the needed result? - All attendees will have a positive impact out of the meeting. Other organizational rules: - Meetings cannot exceed 60 min (Unless there is a justifiable need) - Meeting timing must be optimized for all parties - Virtual meeting are more efficient

In my experience you have to notice, who needs new challenges in their development point and evaluate your own things that could be re-planned.

Mindfulness in scheduling meetings revolves around intentionality and awareness. Before setting up a meeting, reflect on its true necessity and purpose, ensuring that the objectives can't be met through other means. Be aware of the start and end times to maintain a focused agenda and respect participants' time. Mindfulness also means considering participants' schedules, time zones, and potential conflicts to show respect and increase engagement.

When I am not sure of the best time that works, I adopt these two techniques 1. I check the slot where most mandatory participants are available. And book the slot. Then I reach out to those who had a conflict and ask them to check if they can free up that slot 2. I start a chat with the mandatory participants, and suggest them 2 slots. They can choose one or more, or suggest another slot

Use the scheduling assistant to stay mindful of everyone else's times. Avoid early hours, lunch, and late hours. Respect when someone has time blocked on their calendar. Reach out if there is conflict on calendars.

The optimal time of a meeting is the one that fits in everyone's calendar. I would always suggest two to three time slots over three different days. For Internal meetings, use the scheduling assistant option on the email calendar to check the open slot for all attendees. (Focus on the required to attend before the optional ones). For an external meeting, Draft a simple email and request choice on the timing options. I highly advise not to waste time on arranging the timing, send 10s of email and make 10s of phone calls. The idea is to optimize the scheduling.

This is the MOST important thing. I follow this very religiously. I always add a detailed agenda to my meetings. And ask the participants to go through the agenda and come prepared. Sometimes, I start a Slack channel / group chat informing the participants about the upcoming meeting, and ensure we start discussions before the actual meeting. In most cases, I create a Confluence page with all points to be discussed in the meeting. And then share that page beforehand. Participants can add their comments or feedback before the meeting. With all these, most of my meetings have the context preset, and we spend time finalising the points. This makes my meetings much more effective and conclusive. And reduces need for more follow-ups meetings.

The agenda is a powerful time management tool, Where you list all the topics to be discussed in a meeting and you share it with the attendees. This helps in many Aspects; - The objective of meeting will be shared with all attendees - Attendees will prepare better for the meeting - Resources required to the meeting will be prepared - Keep everyone focused and avoid time wasting - Optimize the meeting by knowing the points and allocating time to each one. - Encourage attendees to add any related topics

Encourage participants to attend the meeting in-person wherever possible, or switch on their cameras if connected remotely. This increases participation level. If discussions start going off-track, interrupt gently and ask the relevant parties to take it offline. ENSURE that you take it as an action item in your notes, otherwise people might forget about it.

As an organizer you must moderate the meeting and assure everyone is focused and participating. Work your way through the meeting agenda and encourage everyone to participate to enrich discussions and decisions. Control the time and avoid any time wasting of side discussion, off-topic discussion, ...etc. Encourage participation and creativity and foster diversity and inclusion and emphasize on the importance of everyone's inputs. Assure effective communication in the meeting, either physical or virtual, by eliminating any noise or communication barrier. Active listening and respecting others is another tool that enriches the quality of the meeting and assures positive outcomes.

Important - record notes and take ACTION ITEMS. There are many ways to do that. For instance, in Confluence, we can record actions as Tasks. Record these actions during the meeting itself, and ensure that the action owner acknowledges that they will work on the actions assigned in their name.

The golden outcome of any meeting is the meeting minutes. It must have; - Attendees - Topics discussed - Action required - responsible persons for any action - Time frame for actions - Deadline for feedback - Proposed date for follow up meeting if required Share your meeting minutes with all attendees and follow up the post-meeting actions to assure productivity and efficiency.