Pointless meetings, ah the Brain Bath?! team have had their share of these. That "What am I doing here?" moment as you stare through the glass office door at the mountain of paperwork looming on your desk while a colleague drones on about an inconsequential pet hate/ extended piece of self-congratulation.
So the Brain Bath?! team was not surprised to find that in a survey of 200 managers 40% deemed "pointless meetings" as their biggest time-waster. Over three quarters (77%) of managers taking part in the survey claimed to waste up to five hours each week in unproductive meetings and an additional 20% put this figure at between five and 10 hours.
But meetings are not the only time waster, unwanted phone calls, emails and administration came in at second, third and fourth places respectively.
According to the survey, 70% of respondents said they wasted up to five hours going through emails every week; 73% frittered away up to three hours a week on unwanted phone calls and a third claimed to spend between eight and 10 hours a week on admin.
A quick tot-up reveals that a spot of time management wouldn't go amiss for most of us, with the average person spending at least two days a week locked in non-productive tasks.
The Brain Bath?! would love to hear your most pointless meetings and other office time wasters. Click on add comment at the end of this article to post your own tale of wasted time.
To get you started, never ones to miss the opportunity for a quick whinge, the Brain Bath?! have put together their own top five time wasters:
1) Rebranding meeting: a brainstorming meeting looking at the new titles for old favourite training courses, when "Time management", "First Line Management" and "Law Refresher" have always worked so well in a "does what it says on the tin" kind of way.
2) Team talk: "Floor 11 has pot pourri in its washroom, can we have pot pourri in our washroom?" You know the kind of thing.
3) Email overload: Of the 300 the Brain Bath?! team receive on an average day we calculate 290 fit in the pointless waste of space department.
4) Phone calls: Or more specifically communication overkill. As in: "Yes we did receive the email you sent 10 minutes ago, thank you. Maybe you would like us to fax to confirm?"
5) Administration: Paperwork, emails, phone calls, need we say any more?
Time wasters can also be fun:
Funny stories and office humour:
http://www.office-humour.co.uk/g/c/38/
Cartoons galore:
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/t/time-wasters.asp
Inspirational stuff from The Office:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/
