Keeping Your Eyes Open during Dull Meetings

When formal business meetings start to get boring, attendees get side-tracked into non-business-related activities. They begin to fidget, start playing around with their phones, talk about irrelevant topics or worse – they yawn, their heavy eyes start to close and they doze off!

Despite the struggles of maintaining your focus during dull meetings, you need to combat the often overwhelming feeling of tiredness and concentrate, it could be that your lapse in concentration  means you miss something vital.

Sleeping Business Woman

© totojang1977 / Adobe Stock

Why do meetings get dull?

Speaker’s delivery and off-topic discussions
Perhaps through the lack of experience or preparation, even a seemingly interesting topic can get boring because of the way in which the speaker or presenter delivers it. If they start talking about other topics that have no relevance to the meeting, attendees will take less interest in the rest of the session. If you are about to speak at a meeting, it is your responsibility to deliver the information as clearly and concisely as possible to retain the interest of your audience.

Presentation and visuals
It can be hard to maintain an interest in a presentation when part of the slide show is irrelevant to the topic of conversation. When making digital presentations, remember that it is better to include shorter phrases and sentences so that your audience can continue to follow the gist.

Lack of audience participation
If the speaker doesn’t reach out to the audience or if there is a lack of assertiveness and motivation, the attendees might feel less important and uninclined to participate in the discussion. The meeting will appear less interesting, so their attention will begin to wander – there is no cooperation between the speaker and his audience.

How can you maintain focus during meetings?
If you begin to feel the weight of your eyelids intensifying, the following tips might just help you to stay awake and focused.

Practice mindfulness exercises
You are generally loaded with new information during meetings and this can get you frenzied. Try to relax. Take a few minutes to empty your mind and do simple exercises that are essential to your wellbeing such as mindful breathing, observation, listening, immersion and appreciation.

Stay in the agenda’s direction
It’s possible that discussions might go beyond the scripted agenda. Try to stick close to the main topic of the session and if the conversation keeps turning in different directions, participate or let the right people drive it back to the point.

Change your mindset and focus on the benefits
More than being an easy solution, positively changing your way of thinking can afford you the opportunity to absorb key points of the conversation more efficiently, as you can better understand what is being discussed.

A positive attitude about the meeting will chase the sleepy feeling away. Even if a business meeting starts to get boring, it is still advantageous to attend. Think of the benefits you can get just from being there – from gaining important information, to building connections with co-workers – especially if you’re using a small meeting room.

Meetings often get boring at some point. &Meetings understands that holding a productive and fun business gathering for your attendees or employees is not easy. Try our outstanding training rooms in London… they will help to keep them on the edge of their seats! For enquiries about our venues, please call 0800 073 0499.

Posted by Yasmine Saul

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