Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic began meetings have become all too commonplace.

The meeting you conduct must be productive for anyone who attends it and that’s why you must take care to follow some rules.

Here are some rules of scheduling meetings

Rule 1: Don’t Schedule Too Far in Advance

New ideas are always exciting. Our minds are full of possibilities. But time gives us realities. The excitement of new possibilities gets limited because of the limited time we get.

That’s why we need to be ready. If meetings are scheduled far ahead in advance we lose momentum.

Put thought into details and use a scheduling system to book your meetings in the future. Such proactive steps reduce the risk of you missing the meeting and puts you on the backtrack with scheduling.

Rule 2: Timing Specificity Gets Things Done More Quickly

The easiest way to follow the rule is by communicating clearly and using specificity in your communication. Consider these mistakes when meeting and ask people what’s the best time to avoid stalemates.

Always move the conversation forward.  Don’t simply say Tuesday’s great. Say 5 pm on Tuesday. That’s specific.

Deferring specifics increases everyone’s burden.  You may think you’re being nice by deferring to others. But this puts an additional burden on them which is something you don’t want.

Don’t ask attendees to blindly follow times for work. That’s open-ended and scarcely achieves anything.

Eliminate miscommunications by emphasizing clarity.   You’ll reduce your chance of miscommunication if you’re really specific when talking about dates, even when it seems obvious. For people who are very busy, it’s easy to end up in the wrong week or month on their calendar when scheduling.

Rule 3: Don’t forget time zones

If you regularly schedule phone meetings with people at different time zones, you must include the time zone you’re interested in or want to be available in. You can include the time in different time zones to avoid confusion. Most scheduling systems and calendars help you do that.

However it’s a great thing to do to say that you schedule a meeting for 9 a.m. Pacific/11 a.m. Central on Thursday October 21?

This builds specificity into your meetings and helps you get things done.