Most people complain of having to spend too much time at meetings. They can be a major hurdle to productivity of each of your co-worker, and your team as a whole. No matter how tiresome they may sometimes feel, meetings are an important way to brainstorm and collaborate with your team. We bring you some tips to make the most out of them.

1. Set clear, detailed agenda

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For a meeting to be productive, its aims must be clear to everyone. If you want certain parts of the agenda to be led by particular team members, include the names on it. Define clear goals for the meeting.

When members have time to prepare their specific contribution to the group, meetings tend to be more productive. Send all attendees the agenda well in advance and highlight areas you would like them to be prepared on.

2. Assign someone the job of monitoring progress

Assign a moderator and/or a note-taker who :

1. Records the discussion, ideas, goals and milestones discussed in the meeting

2. Keeps the discussion focused on the agenda

This way, everyone is on the same page about the decisions taken, ideas accepted or dismissed and other take-away from the discussion. Ideally, they should also help the team stick to the schedule. Your teammates can take tuns on this role, or you can assign someone this role permanently!

3. Start and end on time

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One of the more efficient ways to be productive is to always be punctual- if you start on time, you are likelier to stick to agenda and end on time. You may even have time to get another coffee or check your mail before the next meeting. When they start late, meetings can often start feeling like a waste of time to those who come to attend- those who are spending precious minutes waiting for a co-worker rather than working on their projects. Being strict about time can also help your co-workers stay focused and avoid going off-topic. Do this regularly, and your team will appreciate time saved in long meetings.

4. Have a clear take-away for everyone

Avoid the temptation to invite the whole floor for every meeting. People get distracted or ramble when they don’t have a clear purpose or contribution for the meeting. If you are inviting someone, make sure they are either contributing to or following up on (or both) the action items on the agenda. Quickly go around and recap everyone’s key takeaways towards the end of the meeting, so everyone knows why they had to take a break from their desk for this discussion. Our team uses Asana to keep track of our work, and the YellowAnt integration sends everyone a notification on Slack!

5. Everyone loves a snack bar!

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Keeping some snacks for the attendees is a sure-shot way to keep the morale up! Serving hot drinks with light snacks can immediately put your co-workers in a good mood, ward off their hunger, and make them more eager and awake to listen and contribute! Keep the ambiance of your meeting room sunny and breezy- cold and dark places often make people want to sleep. Keep the conversation to the point, and voila! you have a great meeting.