Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The next time you're bored at a meeting...

you might try one of these (source LAURA VANDERKAM, CBS News)

When I began to reflect on my life this month, I realized that the majority of it involves meetings, more meetings, and more meetings. I think when I was a teacher, there was not a lot of time for meetings, but now that I'm an academic there's meetings about scheduling meetings and meetings for reflecting meetings. I'd rather not meet and just get work done. Yet, we are all a part of a community and so working with one another is par for the course. 

I thought it would be funny to find a top ten list for getting through a boring meeting, but found this longer one, instead. Actually, the Internet is exploding with people posting on how to survive a boring meeting. My guess is that boredom and meetings might be synonymous:


1. Write poetry (assuming you're allowed to take notes)

2. Hone your bucket list 
3. Daydream about what you'd like your career to look like 5 years from now. What steps can you take to get there?
4. Pray or meditate
5. Make a list of things you're grateful for
6. Make a list of people you'd like to thank for specific things (then send the emails when you get back to your desk)
7. Ponder the premise for a novel. Write character sketches.
8. Look around the room and come up with one genuinely positive thought about each of the other meeting participants
9. Sketch an idea for a cartoon character
10. List your top priorities for next week, next month and next year
11. Brainstorm a sideline or hobby you'd like to take up. Or even a new business idea. If you wanted to increase your family's income by $20,000 this year, what could you do?
12. Recall one of the happiest moments in your life. How many details can you remember?
13. Think through things about your organization that annoy you. Are there any inefficiencies here to which you can propose solutions? Could you save someone some money? That could be the key to a promotion that gets you out of these meetings.
14. Recall the lyrics to a song that has been meaningful to you. Write them down if you can. Why did you like them?
15. In sales? Make a list of prospects and old clients to check in with. Actually, you should probably do this even if you're not in sales.
16. The old lotto fantasy: If you won $100 million, what would you do with it?
17. Take it down to earth: Say you got a $10,000 unanticipated tax refund. What would you do with that?
18. Write little booklets of advice for each of your children or grandchildren
19. Sketch the meeting room, or even your cup of coffee


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