Going to a boring meeting? Take this column!

by Tom Terez This article first appeared at Work.com

I had big plans for this column. I was going to write about an exciting, engaging, energizing, enlightening, adjective-filled topic. But something happened to change all that -- something that had all the pleasantness of major abdominal surgery.

I attended a meeting.

More accurately: I was imprisoned in a meeting. It lasted two painful hours, during which I became convinced that the laws of physics had somehow broken down and caused an actual stopping of time. It was that bad.

Millions of people are similarly locked down in time-wasting get-togethers each and every working day. According to a recent survey conducted by MeaningfulWorkplace.com, people spend an average of nine hours each week in meetings. That's nearly 500 hours a year -- and who knows how many aspirins.

So while meetings aren't the most exciting topic, they're important because they fill up so much of our time. Even a few improvements here or there can translate into sessions that get more done more quickly and cause fewer headaches for everyone. lees verder

-- Ben (ben@timedesk.nl), August 06, 2001