Meetings are one of those divisive subjects where people either hate them or love them. But I think we can all agree that usually there are too many of them. It has been shown that meetings interrupt the flow of focus, they slow down productivity and sometimes they are just a waste of the majority of people's time. This is why a no-meeting day for you or your company could be exactly what you need.
What is a no meeting day?
It's a day where you ask everyone in your company to have zero meetings, it's that simple, just one day with no meetings. A meeting in most scenarios can be classified as a synchronous conversation between more than 2 people. The idea is that any of these meetings would be done on alternative days, and the no meeting day would primarily be a fully asynchronous working day.
Exceptions to the rule
There are some complications with this when it comes to things like customer facing teams like support teams, so these should still be done, however where possible this should be encouraged for other days. The same is true for sales and revenue teams, if possible reduce the amount of sales calls and meetings you have on the "no meeting day" so that you can use that time to catch up on those tasks there normally isn't time for. Things like 1:1s don't really fall under the "meeting" bracket, but again it's encouraged that these are moved to other days. Remember the "no meeting day" is there to help you and others increase their focus time, 1:1s are still going to be distraction that limits that.
What problem are we solving?
Productivity is at the top of everyone's mind and as part of that meetings can be a blessing but also the worst thing for productivity. There is a lot of research that points to deep focus being one of the most productive ways to achieve tasks, and it's always much harder to achieve deep focus when there is either meetings in your diary, or the fear that there might be.
The problem we solve with no meetings days is to give a chance for people to really improve that deep focus time. You are also improving their ability to organise their own workload, and give them the true flexibility to own their own diaries.
Some people love meetings but are they really the most effective use of our time, especially when you have meetings to prepare for meetings. It's very easy to look at your calendar and think you are being productive being in all meetings all day but when are you getting time to active engagement of work done, and is all this talking resolving in actions?
What are the advantages?
Self time management
Meetings are not always in your control, which means that your diary doesn't really belong to you. Let's be honest if we could plan out our day we would do it differently than the others would have us do...therefore having self time management on a meeting day is a massive advantage. You can plan out your day anyway that you want, from getting all that horrible admin done to solving that problem you have been putting off forever.
Let's be honest this also means you can take breaks when works for you rather than trying to fit them in between meetings, which is always a huge advantage. You'll find that it also improves employees ability to manage their own time overall, you are giving them a lot of trust to get work done without having any meetings, this level of time management will then improve on other days of the week as they take those time management lessons forward.
Increase in deep focus
There is a bunch of evidence in why deep focus is important for productivity, I mean check out deep work if you want to know more. Having a no meeting day means you have an entire day where you are very unlikely to be interrupted, and with this you can plan that day to be your true focus day. Those tasks that need a full multiple hour focus, this is not only helpful to ICs but those in leadership who seem to have constant days of interruptions.
More asynchronous working
Without meetings there still needs to be a way to collaborate, and here comes asynchronous working to the rescue. For more detail on what asynchronous working is why don't you check out the rest of this site, and keep an eye on more and upcoming blogs. The benefits of asynchronous working are massive, and having a day with no meetings forces you to get better at them, which in turns reduces the amount of meetings you might default to the rest of the time.
Higher employee satisfaction
Tell me who doesn't enjoy a day without meetings, just imagine if there was a day like this that you knew was coming up...you'd be happier too. If you read this article you can see that when a no meeting day has been implemented the general employee satisfaction has increased. There are theories behind this but my personal view is, you are giving employees control over how they do their own work, you are also giving them the flexibility to do it whenever, and you are giving them trust to use their time effectively. Hopefully just reading this fills you with excitement.
How do I implement this?
To work effectively this has to be driven from the top, so if you have that level of influence then just do it. If you are not in that position then in order to help influence firstly send this blog, but also send them all the references at the bottom of this blog.
The great thing about implementing a no meeting day is it's incredibly simple, all you need is:
- Definition of a meeting
- The day, or time period you want to implement this
- (you could do half a day to start with)
- What you are looking to achieve
- Defined list of exceptions
- (things like incidents for example)
That's it, once you have this you simply announce it in a town hall, email, Slack, whatever you like. You don't need to enforce it, but it's worth keeping an eye on it and maybe reminding if it looks like it is regularly not being used effectively. As long as it is driven from the top you'll fine most people will then support it fully and gain the benefits.
How do I measure this is working?
There are a couple of areas to focus on when it comes to measuring success:
- Feedback from employees
- Reduction in overall meeting time
- (bonus) knowledge sharing and transparency
Feedback from employees
Ask for direct feedback, this could be in the case of surveys, direct feedback sessions, or something else. The important part is to hear directly from those that are either seeing a benefit or issues with it and adjust to it, you might be surprised what you end up learning.
Reduction in overall meeting time
If you have the ability to measure time spent in meetings either through calendars or timesheets then this is a good indication of if the overall time spent in meeting has reduced. This isn't just from the no meeting day but in general if you see a reduction in meetings throughout other days then you should also start seeing the benefits elsewhere.
Summary
I have worked in places where this has been done and places where this hasn't, and I can tell you that having time where you know there are no meetings is a massive productivity boost. This is a day that me and my team look forward to, having that level of trust and autonomy to get work done is a huge motivation booster.
Occasionally people will try and book in a meeting during those no meetings days and that's OK, but this has to be very, very rare...and more importantly you have every right to say no. As I mentioned earlier, for this to work it has to be driven from the top, and everyone needs to be held accountable.
References to share
Use this to help evidence how impactful a no meeting day can be, these aren't just big names in the industry this is also evidence.
- https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/gsd-day
- https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/102394/1/The%20Surprising%20Impact%20of%20Meeting-Free%20Days.pdf
- https://tldv.io/blog/no-meeting-days-benefits/
- https://www.calendar.com/blog/the-psychological-price-of-meetings/