How To Implement A No Meeting Day

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Meetings can pull employees away from their tasks and slow their productivity, making it more difficult for them to get their work done. Limiting when meetings can be held can allow employees to focus on their work for a day, finish products, and have more say in how their workday goes.

Key Takeaways:

• A no-meeting day is a day that’s set aside to have no meetings.

• No meeting days have the benefits of promoting focus, granting autonomy, limiting burnout, preventing employees from pivoting, and limiting the overall number of meetings.

• In order to establish a no-meeting day policy, you’ll need to be committed to the policy, get buy-in, make it a regular occurrence, and make sure that you don’t expect to solve all of your problems.

What Are No Meeting Days?

As the name implies, a no-meeting day is a day when meetings aren’t allowed to be scheduled. Most businesses will pick a day of the week – often Friday – when employees are given uninterrupted time to work on their tasks. The idea is gaining popularity, and more businesses are adopting the practice.

The primary driver behind having a set no-meeting day is to give employees a day where they can solely focus on their work. Meetings inherently break up workers’ days, which can make it difficult for them to finish a particular task. This is doubly so if meetings have a tendency to shift focus and make employees pivot to something else.

How to Establish a No Meeting Day

So you’ve decided that a no-meeting day would be right for your business. Now you need to figure out how the policy works and how to make sure it’s followed. Not everyone is going to be immediately on board, and even if they are, habits can be difficult to break. Here are some steps to follow to try to make no-meeting days a reality.

• Make the commitment. The first step is being committed to the course of action. If you’re not sure you’re really on board with the policy, then it’s harder to get others to go along with it, and you’ll be less inclined to enforce the policy. So, first, be sure it’s something you really want to try.

• Get buy-in. Once you’re sure of your own commitment, it’s time to get management to get on board with it. Of course, you should also consider your employees as well, but leadership is where the policy can actually be implemented and followed.

  Remind your managers that getting time that isn’t tied up in meetings allows them to get other tasks done as well. Make sure that they know that it isn’t just for the benefit of a particular group of employees – cutting back on meetings can help everyone.

• Make it regular. In general, the best way to set a no-meeting day and have it followed is to make it a regular occurrence. Then everyone gets used to the routine that on Thursday, there won’t be any meeting scheduled. That also allows your employees to schedule tasks on that day if they don’t want to be interrupted.

• Automate it. A way to make it hard to forget or override is to put it into the calendar. That way, no meetings can be scheduled on that day. Especially early on, people may forget about the fact that it’s a no-meeting day and try to schedule a meeting. Not having that option available will prevent mistakes and make it hard to subvert the policy.

• Don’t expect it to be magical. While having a day with no meetings can have many positive effects, it isn’t a panacea. Inefficiencies won’t just vanish if you stop scheduling meetings on one day. That means that you’ll also have to look into other potential solutions and see if there’s another way to cut back on unnecessary meetings.

  For instance, if all meetings that would be scheduled on the no meeting day instead get pushed to other days, that may not end up having much of a positive effect. Yes, your employees will have that one day to work, but then more of their other days will be filled up with meetings.

• It isn’t one size fits all. Blanket policies aren’t effective for everyone. There will be some departments where having a set no-meeting day will be a hindrance rather than a help. Also, top-down policies can cause resentment, as it’s yet another requirement that the leadership is dropping on its workers.

  That doesn’t mean that it still won’t help those departments if you’re able to be flexible with the policy. Maybe have no meeting weeks once a month rather than a no-meeting day. Or allow what day the no meeting day is to float. Whatever the case, it’s important to work with your teams to make sure the policy is actually helping them.

The Benefits of No Meeting Days

Having a day without any meetings can offer several different benefits to your staff. They’re growing in popularity because businesses are seeing positive results after implementing them. Here are some advantages of having a no-meeting day in your workplace:

• Additional focus. It’s much easier to focus on a task if you know that you won’t be interrupted. This gives employees a day where they don’t have to worry about anything other than their assigned tasks, which means that they can devote themselves to their work.

• Limit burnout. Burnout has been a serious problem in the workplace in recent years. Employees feel overworked and underappreciated and that they have too many duties. Having no meetings on a day of the week means that they can focus on their tasks and have one less thing to worry about.

  While a no-meeting day isn’t an actual break (which is the best way to deal with burnout), it gives them a lot more freedom. They can work on the tasks that they feel need to be done first, and they are allowed to create the structure of their workday.

• Prevent having to pivot. Having to shift course during the day is not only distracting but also drops productivity. There’s the issue of what’s called “attention residue,” which makes it difficult to switch between tasks. Basically, what it is is that even though you’ve shifted from Task one to Task two, part of your attention remains on the first task.

  Due to the fact that part of your attention is elsewhere, your productivity on your current task drops. This can be an issue of shifting back to what you were doing from the meeting or worrying about what’s going to be covered and discussed in the meeting before you go.

• Fewer meetings. Ideally, having a no-meetings day drops the number of overall meetings. Many businesses skew towards having more meetings than they need to, and part of the idea of a no-meeting day is to try to weed out the ones that are unnecessary.

• Gives employees more autonomy. If your employees have a day where there aren’t any meetings, that allows them to schedule the day as they see fit. That gives them more control over their day and what tasks to tackle – and how to go about it. Meetings have a tendency to direct people on how to work, which can be counterproductive.

• Cut down on stress. I’m not sure that anyone really likes meetings. They’re useful, certainly, and necessary under certain circumstances. But the majority of people – particularly those who aren’t running them – don’t care for them.

  For most workers, having a day where they don’t have to worry about a meeting makes the day less stressful. They won’t be concerned about what will be discussed or if they’ll be assigned a new task.

No Meeting Day FAQ

1. Is a no meeting day right for your business?

   No meeting days have several benefits that mean that they’ll likely have a positive impact on your business. No meeting days are especially useful for industries where workers work independently and require high levels of focus. Meetings break them out of their work and force them to shift their focus, leading to attention residue.

   No meeting days can also be helpful in trying to cut back on overlong or unnecessary meetings, as it limits the number that can be scheduled.

2. Do no meeting days help managers?

   Yes, no meeting days also help managers. While managers are usually the ones scheduling and running the meetings, there are a lot of other tasks that managers need to get done. Having a day with no meetings allows managers to concentrate on those tasks, as well as gives them a break from having to run meetings.

   Some managers also feel as if they have to keep having meetings both to check up on their workers and make it clear that they have tasks assigned. Implementing a no-meeting day policy makes it clear that this isn’t a requirement, and managers aren’t expected to have regular meetings just for the sake of meetings.

Author

Di Doherty

Di has been a writer for more than half her life. Most of her writing so far has been fiction, and she’s gotten short stories published in online magazines Kzine and Silver Blade, as well as a flash fiction piece in the Bookends review. Di graduated from Mary Baldwin College (now University) with a degree in Psychology and Sociology.