keeping focused during meetings

Me and Terri Trespicio with Gary Vaynerchuk at our friend Farnoosh Torabi’s launch party for her new CNBC show Follow the Leader. She interviews Gary in it.

I talk a lot about the biggest time wasters in the workplace.

You know them well.

There’s checking Facebook or your email, trolling the internet for nearly anything, chatting with your co-worker, a “quick” game of Candy Crush… the list goes on and on.

But what’s the ultimate time waster?

Meetings!

Think about it. How many time have you sat in a meeting that was supposed to finish an hour ago, but one person keeps asking questions that aren’t really relevant? (There’s always one!)

What’s more? The majority of meetings end up going nowhere. Too much talk and nothing ever gets done.

That’s a huge pet peeve of mine — I’m all about the execution. Give me the checklist to get things done! Read more

Sometimes a funny thing happens when you hang up the phone after an important conversation. You forget everything that just happened! Haven’t we all been there? I know I have. I have a fail proof way of dealing with this. I take notes on life.

Almost every time I’m on the phone — I take notes. Even if it’s not an “important” call — I jot down words, phrases and questions that come up. This way I pay better attention and really focus on what’s being said. And I don’t lose track of my follow up questions. It turns out you don’t even have to really take notes — you can just doodle. There was a recent study in Applied Cognitive Psychology that found people who doodle were 29 percent better at a memory test than people who didn’t doodle.

I also use the “note-taking technique” during meetings and when I read magazines. If I don’t — I move on to the next project and poof everything I learned goes out of my head. I’m constantly writing down tidbits I want to remember, websites I want to check out and ideas that I have. It helps you to think about what you’re doing and be mindful — remember multitasking is impossible!

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