-
Vote on Oct 14!
Feb
2
(2005)
On Meetings
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: learningcommons, rants.
I’ve always tried - not always successfully - to limit the amount of time I spend in meetings. Time spent in meetings is largely time spent not being productive (with a few notable exceptions). Well, there have been some changes here in the Learning Commons, with the net result for me being - wait for it - more meetings. That would be fine, but I still have the same deadlines and non-meeting workload. It’s going to be interesting over the next couple of weeks to find the balance.
The most “fun” is when these freshly appointed meetings result in a sudden awareness of previously undefined deadlines and commitments. Even more fun when they’re only a matter of weeks in the future… I’ll be doing some scrambling over the next couple of months, but it’s going to be fun! 
On the upside, Norm Vaughan just started here in the Learning Commons. I bumped into him in a hallway farewell party for another staffer, and he mentioned that he reads my blog (Hi, Norm!). Woah. I still can’t get used to having people actually read this thing… He also mentioned that he knew of me from a previous life here on campus. I’d almost forgotten about those days - they seem so long ago. Are decades longer this century?
And, apparently I need to start a category for rants and/or rambling… Oh, well…
Comments
6 Responses to “On Meetings”
Leave a Reply
I never knew you were a nurse in a past life. It explains so much
Just kidding.
I wasn’t a nurse, but I sure was close… By the time I finished programming the Nasotracheal Tube CD-ROM, I’m pretty sure I could have put one in… The bed sores CD we did was a bit more nasty, though…
You get promoted? In higher ed, getting promoted always means more time in the conference room. At any rate, enjoy the quiet time … thank god for wifi! Forget a category for rants and put one in for “Meeting Thoughts” … watch comedy ensue. I spend about 80% of my time taking part in meetings on campus (read taking part as “resting”) … I hope my Dean doesn’t read your blog
Have fun–>
Not a promotion - I’m just filling in… And I can’t really “rest” because most of what’s going through my head during meetings is all of the actual work that I could be doing
So how are things at the LC now? Sorry to hear about your long meetings though… maybe you can take a page from the eXtreme Programming method and hide all the chairs in the room, forcing it to be a stand-up meeting. That way long meetings become increasingly uncomfortable, hopefully pusing people to adjourn quicker. Or you could go the other way - replace chairs with bean bags so that at least if it’s a long meeting you can steal a quick snooze.
If the meetings were all internal, that would be great. Perhaps have a “who can drink the most water?” contest about an hour before the meeting, too, so there are pending pressing things to be taken care of outside of the meeting