Cut meetings to save time and improve your health

by Sue Unerman Media Week 13-May-08, 07:30

How many meetings can you have in a day? We ran an internal competition where more than 50 teams each had around four minutes to pitch an idea to senior management.

Astonishingly, more than 95% gave us a clear idea in those four minutes. We're all busy people and one of my take-outs from this experience was that a 15-minute meeting - get an idea across, build on it, agree actions - was a real possibility.

Why would you want a 15-minute meeting? This clearly depends what the meeting is for. On the writer Seth Godin's blog, there is a great spoof ad, which reads: "Are you lonely? Tired of working on your own? Do you hate making decisions? Hold a meeting! You can see people, show charts, feel important, point with a stick, eat donuts [sic], impress your colleagues - all on company time! Meetings - the practical alternative to work!"

If meetings are about filling your day, then eliminating them isn't an attractive option. Godin's advice is to cancel some meetings and see what you get done instead.

Mine is to cut down the length of your meetings. Assuming they are functional in purpose and not about building relationships, then try the 15-minute version this week.

This now raises the question: what can you do with the time saved? Spending more time thinking creatively and productively is one obvious solution, but there is another answer possibly creeping across your keyboard. Today's challenge might be to clean your computer.

In the spring, a time of year when, only 50 years ago, women were universally expected to be considering spring cleaning, the papers still run seasonal cleaning features.

And it turns out that, according to a survey by the consumer watchdog Which?, some keyboards are dirtier than a toilet. Of 33 keyboards swabbed, four were regarded as a potential health hazard, and one harboured five times more germs than one of the office's toilet seats.

Further research by the University of Arizona found that the average office desktop harbours 400 times more bacteria than the average office toilet seat. The researchers also found that, compared to men, women have on average three to four times the amount of germs in, on, and around their work area. I've always suspected that men are better suited to housework than women.