You've been sitting in the conference room for two hours now while a couple of your colleagues discuss "long-term strategy." And while you know you should be absorbing more of what they have to say, you can't stay focused--you feel like you could lay your head down on the conference table and catch a few winks.
So we're here to offer some helpful pointers on how to stay awake and get back in the game:
Prepare: One way to fight that sneaky tired feeling in your meeting is to plan ahead. Hopefully, your colleagues have sent around an agenda that gives you a heads-up of what to expect. Review the agenda and outline what questions you need to ask during the meeting, to help you meet your company and project goals. Sure, it may be dry stuff in meetings sometimes, but there's a reason they invited you to participate. Don't rush in at the last minute without your own game plan; if you plan ahead, you may get more out of the meeting than you expected.
Map out the objectives: Assuming you feel comfortable around the meeting attendees, see if you can ask the meeting organizer to kick off the meeting by outlining the intended goals of your time together. That way, if the meeting veers off course, each team member can feel comfortable jumping in to help refocus the topic of conversation and use everyone's time efficiently.
Reduce your lunch portion size: Don't let all your energy get sucked away by a big lunch. If you eat a large lunch, your energy is focused on breaking that food down, not on helping your brain power through your meeting. It's all about moderation. Save that big meal for dinner--you'll probably enjoy it more anyway.
Manage your caffeine intake: Sure, it may feel great to have three consecutive cups of coffee in the morning and then feel that burst of motivation. But once you crash, it can feel like someone sucked the life out of you. Drinking too much coffee too fast can inhibit how successful you'll be throughout the duration of the work day. Instead, focus on slow and steady--pace your caffeine intake so it's more likely to help you coast along from project to project.
Take notes: If you're in a meeting where it's more about being talked to than talked with, keep a piece of paper and pen or your laptop at the ready so you can jot down meeting highlights; this may help you stay in sync and actively engaged with the presenter's discussion.
Open a window: If you have the benefit of windows that open in your conference room, see if your colleagues wouldn't mind if you opened a window or two to let in some fresh air and hopefully get everyone's juices flowing again.
But try as we might, we all get caught in these meetings at some point in our careers. By taking some of these measures either before or during your meeting, hopefully you won't get caught for having missed a vital piece of information. And who knows, if you're motivated to stay focused, it could just be contagious!
Job Info , Jobs Sources , Career
No comments:
Post a Comment