Have you ever been in one of those meetings that just dragged on for hours?

You know the ones that, come the end of the meeting, you realise you've gone in circles, discussing the wrong things for hours and there are no real outcomes.

In almost every study done on meetings since the 60's, it turns out that the majority of employees think that half the time of each meeting is wasted and that some executives spend up to eighteen hours per week in meetings!

I remember one of the first meetings I attended in my corporate job in London. We sat there for 2 hours talking about nothing of consequence and congratulating people on work they'd done, rather than discussing all the things that were outstanding and needed to be done.

I almost left the meeting in the first 20 minutes as I was literally pulling my hair out trying to get everyone to actually do the work.

I vowed after that complete waste of time NEVER to head into a meeting without:

1. An actual purpose for the meeting in the first place
2. A clear agenda for the meeting and who must attend
3. Meeting briefing notes that are short and sweet but must be read before hand

Ineffective meetings can not only be a waste of everyone's time, but can lead to a lot of frustration within a team, a lack of delegation and the most important tasks falling through the cracks.

In the long-term this affects your bottom line and the happiness of your team.

So how do you avoid crappy, time-wasting meetings and get real work done?

Say a big hello to Asana, a totally free project and task management tool for individuals and teams, that has the potential to eliminate the ineffective meeting forever.

There's one rule of thumb for meetings that the founders of Asana live by:

If you feel like you're going to write an extra-lengthy email, then it's meant for a meeting. Otherwise, you can communicate through Asana, which we tend to do as a team because we avoid meetings as much as possible. - Justin Rosenstein, Asana

Start using Asana to simplify your meetings with these 6 steps.