Like most blogs and business, I spend a lot of time talking business with my partner throughout the day. A 15-minute chat here, an hour discussion, a 20-minute strategy foray. If you are a business, chances are you have a daily hour-long meeting… or more
I realized recently, that all meetings can be reduced down into 15-minute strategy sessions. Otherwise, you waste a TON of time.
Let me show you how to cut out those time sinks and save you 2hrs a day.
Run 15 minute strategy meetings in the morning and a 15 minute recap at end of the day.
That’s it…
30 minutes in the entire day is dedicated to chatting.
Oh and while you are doing these meetings, stand up.
How to run a 15-minute meeting.
To effectively run a 15-minute strategy meeting, you have to change the format on how you approach a meeting. Approach these strategy sessions with the end in mind and the communication has to be excellent, clear, and concise.
Starting with the end.
This is how it works, every morning we get together and identify what success looks like at the end of the day. We focus only on today, as it pertains to the big goal for the week.
When we can identify what success looks like, we reverse engineer how we would arrive there. Breaking success down into tasks to finish by the end of the day. Each of those tasks are broken down further into base components.
This is the basis of the A in S.M.A.R.T goals.
From there we can identify who will complete the tasks. To increase efficiency, of completing tasks, We group similar tasks together. Each person only focuses on one type of tasks.
Effectively, we will group each bullet below, into a day’s work.
- Writing content
- Posting on social media
- Making calls/client meetings
- Analyzing spreadsheets
- Strategizing and building plans
If the tasks for the day looked like this (all of them in one day):
- write blog article
- pitch to client
- create email marketing series ( 3 emails)
- Design client presentation
- split test headlines
One person will be tasked with writing the blog article, creating the email series, and split testing headlines—all these tasks require the same mental state: “creative writing.”
The second person can handle the client pitch, and designing the presentation.
Figure out what will stop you from being successful.
Once we both have our list of tasks, we look at any hiccups that could arise and prevent us from succeeding.
The way we do this is by asking “do I have all the resources I need to be successful?”
If yes, then you are good to go. Whooohooo
If we answer no, we follow up with two questions.
- Can I acquire the resources to be successful?
- Am I allowing other things outside my control to dictate my success?
If we can acquire all the resources to be successful, great! Make a list of what those resources are, and go out and get them.
If success is based on things outside our control we ask two more questions.
- Can we change our approach to achieve a better result? Yes or no?
- Can we show up to the situation better?
Sometimes success is based off other people. You can’t make a client say yes to a proposal. But you can show up to the meeting prepared, and give your best pitch possible.
Finally, to close the 15 minute strategy meeting we ask one final question.
What reward do we get for completing the tasks, what punishment do we get for failing?
This is the toughest part of the meeting. To complete the tasks and achieve your goals you have to have a mechanism of motivation. You can either create a reward for completing the tasks, or punish yourself for failing.
We are more risk averse as a species than reward.
I.E we will work harder at not losing that $ 100 than gaining an additional $ 100.
Knowing this, you could use http://www.stickk.com/ to put stakes up to an anti-carity to encourage you to complete difficult tasks. If you are a Republican, put up money to donate to the Democratic party or visa versa.
If you complete the tasks, you don’t pay anything. You fail… well you get the picture.
How to run a 15-minute recap.
This part is really interesting to me. A 15-minute recap is actually a 7.5-minute recap for two people, a 5-minute recap with 3, so on and so forth.
It actually has become a game in our office whatever coffee shop we’re at. We set an egg timer for each person. If you run over, you buy a round of drinks for the whole group!
To not buy drinks for your small team, be concise and start with the end in mind.
Did you complete all the tasks for the day? Yes or No?
If yes, make sure you congratulate the other person. Creating a culture of positive reinforcement is really important.
If no, ask why.
If you have to answer “no,” make sure you have a clear understanding of why you didn’t complete tasks.
Bonus: This forces you not to blame others because you can run out of time and buy drinks.
Didn’t get the email autoresponders done because you got in and realized you needed an extra blog article? So, you spent the time crafting an amazing blog post.
Once you identify why you didn’t get the tasks done, identify what you need to be successful next time.
Before we craft an autoresponder series, make sure we know what articles are going in it. Finally, say what else came up through the day.
Got an email from that sponsor, realized you were out of TP at home and you needed to pick it up, whatever it might be. When everyone has recapped make sure you give high fives, kudos, and hugs.
Oh and go out and get those much-needed drinks.
You save loads of time in 15-minute meetings by being clear with your goals. You can grab our free workbook goal setting for epic entrepreneurs.
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