We’re a productivity-obsessed nation, always looking for new ways to save precious hours and accomplish more in less time at work.

One of the biggest workplace productivity saboteurs? You guessed it: meetings.

Every year, businesses waste $37 billion (yep, with a “b”) on unproductive meetings. Middle managers report spending 35% of their time in meetings, and upper management spends a whopping 50% of their work week attending meetings.

Whether your company schedules too many of them, or they just last too darn long, meetings rob you of time you could be spending on your core responsibilities. Can you just skip the ones you don’t feel like attending? Banish meetings altogether? Probably not. But there is hope! Today, our team shares a few expert tips to combat meeting overload and make them worth your time:

Improve meeting planning.

Distribute a clear agenda (at least 24 hours in advance) with discussion items, required preparation and a rough timeline, so that everyone gets the greatest return on their invested time.

Block time.

If you attend multiple, regular meetings in a single day, those 15- and 30-minute chunks of “dead” time between them really add up. When you plan multiple meetings, schedule them back-to-back to minimize wasted time.

Banish devices.

Ask participants to put away their phones, so eyes and attention don’t stray every time they light up.

Be ruthless about timing.

Everyone appreciates it when meetings begin and end according to schedule. To keep participants from derailing conversations or endlessly droning on, try using a countdown clock. It sends a clear message that the end of the meeting is a deadline, and it gives you a polite excuse to interrupt, redirect and get attendees back on track.

Schedule breaks.

Any meeting longer than an hour should include a break. Require participants to get up, stretch and move around. Give them five minutes for a phone check or bathroom visit, and then engage them for another five in something fun to break the tedium before refocusing on the task at hand.

Selectively uninvite yourself.

While your attendance at certain meetings is likely mandatory, that may not always be the case. Over time, routine meetings may lose their effectiveness and your attendance may not be essential. Periodically evaluate whether you absolutely need to attend recurring meetings – and respectfully uninvite yourself to ones you can skip.

Need a hand getting it all done?

Give Exact Staff’s experts a call. We provide a full complement of national staffing and placement services to save time. Banish busywork. Keep you focused on essential priorities. And accomplish your goals. Give us a call to find out what we can do for you.