On this episode of Five-Minute Friday, host Jon Krohn brings his habit-making practices into the dreaded meeting room. Make every company meeting productive and positive with his five-step method for assigning deliverables.
Without question, meetings should be in place to move ideas, people or processes forward. But this unwritten rule is quickly forgotten when teams get set in their ways and agendas are dropped from regular check-ins. For Daily Habit #11, Jon outlines his five-step method for ensuring that you and your colleagues leave every meeting with the feeling that it was worth your time. Follow these points of action, and you’ll never have another meeting to repeat what you said at the previous meeting ever again.
Time is precious, and regular listeners to the show will know that the approaches found in this episode are part of Jon’s Daily Habit miniseries in his Five-Minute Fridays. Take a deeper dive into improving productivity by listening to episodes 1-10. You’ll find them all wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Podcast Transcript
(00:05):
This is Five-Minute Friday on Assigning Deliverables from Meetings.
(00:27):
At the beginning of the new year, in Episode #538, I introduced the practice of habit tracking and provided you with a template habit-tracking spreadsheet. Then, we had a series of Five-Minute Fridays that revolved around daily habits and we’ve been returning to this daily-habit theme periodically since.
At the beginning of the new year, in Episode #538, I introduced the practice of habit tracking and provided you with a template habit-tracking spreadsheet. Then, we had a series of Five-Minute Fridays that revolved around daily habits and we’ve been returning to this daily-habit theme periodically since.
(00:45):
Earlier in the year, we were focused on morning habits that start the day on “the right side of the bed”, while more recently we’ve been focused on habits related to productivity. Now, last week’s Five-Minute Friday episode featured me praising a book called Four Thousand Weeks in which the central premise is that being productive in and of itself is not a path toward a happy life. Nevertheless, being productive with the time we spend working — assuming we don’t become consumed by work — can be key to freeing up the precious, limited time we have alive so that we can spend it, say, with our loved ones, engaged in hobbies we find rewarding, or simply enjoying being.
Earlier in the year, we were focused on morning habits that start the day on “the right side of the bed”, while more recently we’ve been focused on habits related to productivity. Now, last week’s Five-Minute Friday episode featured me praising a book called Four Thousand Weeks in which the central premise is that being productive in and of itself is not a path toward a happy life. Nevertheless, being productive with the time we spend working — assuming we don’t become consumed by work — can be key to freeing up the precious, limited time we have alive so that we can spend it, say, with our loved ones, engaged in hobbies we find rewarding, or simply enjoying being.
(01:23):
With that in mind, today’s episode is focused on the habit of assigning deliverables from every single business meeting we have on a given day. In order to make efficient use of the time we allocate to working, we need to come out of every meeting we are involved in with clearly defined action items assigned to specific individuals. If we don’t do this, we could end up in a scenario where we needlessly circle back with people from the meeting — via email, via Slack, or perhaps via having another meeting — to remember what was covered and what needs to be done next by whom. What a waste of not only your precious time, but also the time of your colleagues or collaborators.
With that in mind, today’s episode is focused on the habit of assigning deliverables from every single business meeting we have on a given day. In order to make efficient use of the time we allocate to working, we need to come out of every meeting we are involved in with clearly defined action items assigned to specific individuals. If we don’t do this, we could end up in a scenario where we needlessly circle back with people from the meeting — via email, via Slack, or perhaps via having another meeting — to remember what was covered and what needs to be done next by whom. What a waste of not only your precious time, but also the time of your colleagues or collaborators.
(02:02):
To ensure that deliverables are assigned, if you’re running the meeting yousđrself, you can formally set the final meeting agenda item to be something like “assign deliverables”. If you’re not running the meeting, you can suggest having this final agenda item to the meeting organizer at the meeting’s outset or even as the meeting begins to wrap up. By assigning deliverables in this way, we not only make the best use of everyone’s time going forward, but we also maximize the probability that all of the essential action items are actually delivered upon.
To ensure that deliverables are assigned, if you’re running the meeting yousđrself, you can formally set the final meeting agenda item to be something like “assign deliverables”. If you’re not running the meeting, you can suggest having this final agenda item to the meeting organizer at the meeting’s outset or even as the meeting begins to wrap up. By assigning deliverables in this way, we not only make the best use of everyone’s time going forward, but we also maximize the probability that all of the essential action items are actually delivered upon.
(02:33):
Five good practices for assigning deliverables effectively include: First, ensuring everyone at the meeting understands what the deliverable is. Second, breaking complex deliverables into smaller, clear, and well-understood mini-deliverables. Third is assigning a specific individual to each deliverable. Forth is associating each deliverable with a specific due date. And finally fifth, following up on the deliverables in a structured way. For example, if the meeting recurs weekly then the standing first item on the meeting agenda could be to review the deliverables that were assigned at the preceding week’s meeting.
Five good practices for assigning deliverables effectively include: First, ensuring everyone at the meeting understands what the deliverable is. Second, breaking complex deliverables into smaller, clear, and well-understood mini-deliverables. Third is assigning a specific individual to each deliverable. Forth is associating each deliverable with a specific due date. And finally fifth, following up on the deliverables in a structured way. For example, if the meeting recurs weekly then the standing first item on the meeting agenda could be to review the deliverables that were assigned at the preceding week’s meeting.
(03:11):
Like the other habits I’ve already covered in my Five-Minute Friday episodes on my daily habits, I choose to log my “assign deliverables from meetings” habit as a binary habit — either we assigned deliverables from every meeting I was in that day or we didn’t — so using the habit-tracking template I introduced in Episode #538, I set the min column for this particular habit’s row of the spreadsheet to 0 and the max column to 1.
Like the other habits I’ve already covered in my Five-Minute Friday episodes on my daily habits, I choose to log my “assign deliverables from meetings” habit as a binary habit — either we assigned deliverables from every meeting I was in that day or we didn’t — so using the habit-tracking template I introduced in Episode #538, I set the min column for this particular habit’s row of the spreadsheet to 0 and the max column to 1.
(03:34):
All right, that’s it. Keep on rockin’ it out there, folks, and I’m looking forward to enjoying another round of the SuperDataScience podcast with you very soon.
All right, that’s it. Keep on rockin’ it out there, folks, and I’m looking forward to enjoying another round of the SuperDataScience podcast with you very soon.
