Hi, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor.

I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, a firm specializing in helping leaders and organizations crack their activation codes, finding the simple tweaks to enhance both performance and employee engagement.

So, question for you.

Any idea how much time you're spending in meetings?

Well, if you're not sure, then my best guess is about two full days per week. At least, according to the Wall Street Journal, this is where

the average is tending to fall right now. Meetings have gotten a bad rap. I hear people complaining

all the time that they have no time to actually get their work done

because they're spending all day in meetings. For me, though, this sentiment is the real problem.

Because meetings should be serving your ability to deliver great work, not hindering it.

A meeting, in my opinion, should feel like a platform from which you deliver something important, not just a

drain of your time. But if you're feeling that drain, then let's talk about ways that you might

dial up your impact at however many meetings are calling your name right now. First, make sure you're

going to the right ones, and not the wrong ones. Seriously, I still see way

too many people hitting except as soon as the invite hits their inbox. This is where the problem

starts. We all need to be more discerning about where we're spending our time. One of the biggest

reasons meetings are sucking our souls right out through our eyeballs is we're

just sitting in too many that we don't belong in.

So here's my suggestion.

Do a quick audit of the last five or so meetings that you were in.

Here are some signals, in my opinion, that indicate maybe it wasn't a right meeting for

you to attend.

If the only real objective of the meeting

...