Going solo: hold a meeting by yourself
Meetings are great for coming up with fresh ideas, organising schedules and reviewing work – but do you really need a room full of people to do this? Why not go it alone?
Meetings would be great, if it wasn’t for all the other people. Here we look at the benefits of taking a solo meeting.
1. A bit of you time
You might think you don’t need a solo meeting because you can do everything at your desk. But it’s not true. A study found that when we switch tasks, 40% of the time it’s due to an interruption from a colleague and it takes 25 minutes to get back on track. Not only that but you’ve got email, phones and the internet all there waiting to take your attention away.
By taking yourself off to a meeting room you can focus on the tasks you need to from planning your diary to going over a recent project you’ve just completed.
2. Cover the areas you want
You’ve probably found yourself in a meeting getting angry at colleagues because they’ve taken over the time with their problems and you can see the seconds ticking away, knowing your issues will be pushed until the next meeting.
In a solo meeting you and you alone set the agenda. Obviously you won’t have people to bounce ideas off but you will have time to focus on any issues that are important to you and think about how you will tackle them.
3. No interruptions
Ever been in the situation when you’re in a meeting, developing an idea and your train of thought is interrupted by someone? It’s annoying and sometimes you can forget a great idea completely.
In a solo meeting this will never happen. You will be left alone to fully develop ideas. If you need help taking them to the next level or want some feedback, you can call a colleague in when you want, not when other people decide.
4. Do it when you want
One of the great things about a solo meeting is that you can do it whenever you need one. You’re not having to juggle diaries with other people or having to rearrange your workload to fit in with the weekly meeting.
You can schedule one for yourself every week or just take one when you feel you need to step back from your workload and have a review. Make sure you do it away from your desk as otherwise you’ll just find yourself doing more work and failing to address the larger issues at hand.
Posted by Julie Tucker
