MTM – Making meetings more manageable
Have you ever left a meeting with a confused or unclear idea as to what decisions were reached, perhaps with a sense that your time was not used constructively or that some topics were simply not discussed? Unfortunately, this happens more often than you can imagine.
The reasons are many and varied: people in meetings often spend too much time on one subject and run out of time to discuss others at length, other times participants disagree and fail to reach clear-cut decisions, etc.
It is the role of the chairperson to ensure that all the topics on the agenda are discussed in a timely manner and that decisions are reached. However more often than not, time runs out and people find that no time has been set aside for summaries/conclusions.
This is when MTM (Meeting Time Management) can prove to be an invaluable tool to make your life easier – it was created with the intention of helping people who host meetings them keep track of time and manage their time effectively.
Easy to use, by simply setting the end time of the meeting as well as one or two alarms, the app allows you to allocate time at the end of your meeting for summaries/conclusions and thus refocus the debate, move to previously untreated subjects or switch to summary/conclusions.
MTM can also be used for a simple presentation – for example if you have been allocated a 20-minute slot in which to make a presentation, all you need to do is enter the end time and one or two alarms to let you know you are nearing the end time. This allows to focus truly on content rather than time management.
Another type of outlet this app is invaluable for is auditions. Whether you are a teacher, a dance, drama or singing coach, you sometimes need to allocate time slots to your students.
You also need to bear in mind that you should to be fair and provide equal time slots for each participant. Are you sure this will be the case? Sometimes it is easy to get distracted and to spend more time with one student, leaving the others with shorter time slots.
MTM works out equal time slots according to the total length of time available and the number of participants and therefore allows the organiser to no longer worry about time tracking and instead focus on each participant.
If you want your meetings to be more efficient and effective – find the right tools to support you!
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