Quick Tip - How to Set a Goal for Your Meeting

In the past I would set a goal for every meeting, to just get something done. This made sense at the time. Meeting after meeting where nothing got done, it would drive me crazy and cause anxiety.

The most important thing I have learned is that setting a goal is only half of the equation; you also have to decide on what you are going to do WITHIN your goal that will help you meet your success criteria.

I know, this sounds obvious, and in most cases it is. The big difference with me, is that over the years I have gotten easily distracted by other things. I start writing a blog article or a tweet, or quite often even a Facebook message will pop up and distract me from my goal.

How you can use this in your life:

Set your meeting goal at the top of your agenda for every day (morning pages, diet/exercise weeks, etc). This will help you to stay focused during your meeting. Write down what success criteria (non-negotiable goals) are you going to accomplish. If you have to write these on a whiteboard or on a piece of paper, DO IT. Schedule time to do what you need to do with supporting team members and outside contractors/experts. Schedule time to reach out to your team members that you need to get answers from. Decide how you will stay focused during the meeting (turn off distracting devices like Facebook, email, Twitter, etc - close your door if that helps). Use While You Wait (www.whileshewait.com) and other free resources like it to stay focused during the meeting and accomplish what needs accomplished during the meeting.

Note: A goal is only a goal if you actually follow through at the right time, and perform what is needed to get it done.

Example for Focus Tip: Your CEO calls a meeting because he had some problems over the weekend that he wants your team to help him solve. A goal could be to give the CEO access to your team's knowledge so he can solve his problem. Another goal could be to write a script of how they do that, and then give this script to the CEO. Another way you can use focus tip: Make sure that your team members are prepared with their questions or solutions. This is especially important if you are working through an issue together and the issues is complicated or will take time to get figured out. Rather than spend all day on one issue, you want to spend two hours on 2-3 highly important issues that have a significant impact on your business.

Conclusion