Is silently sitting in a meeting a waste of time for Product Managers?

Do you also get an angry look when you say “I need to skip this meeting to do some actual work?” How did it happen that Product Managers waste time on unproductive meetings and how to fix it? Well…

Let’s get one thing straight: To feel you’ve worked, you need to have an output to show. Sitting for an hour in a meeting just to say “thank you” can be a huge waste of time. This feels like a waste of time, but there is another side to this.

On one hand, I will tell you to:
1) Set yourself daily/weekly/monthly goals and only attend the meeting that will get you closer to those goals.
2) Ask for meeting recordings/notes for those you decided to skip
3) Block your calendar to ensure you have time to focus and eat
4) Try to take breaks between meetings so it’s not a painful, continues series, etc
5) Don’t be afraid to reschedule, your time is precious

On the other, it’s perfectly OK to take a few unproductive meetings a week.

Wait, what?

Hear me out:

The Product Manager is an information hub of a product through whom a lot of people and teams relay information. Whether that is corporate strategy, marketing plan, technical development details, or user complaints. the PM will be in the middle of it.

With this knowledge and a well of product experience, you are sort of a guard, preventing others from bad decisions. As long as you listen and pay just enough attention to know what is happening in the meeting, it’s enough! Take the time to do some stretching or cook dinner, as long as your camera and microphone are off ;) Even if you don’t realize this, you are still a real asset in those meetings! Just be ready to speak up or ask the right question when something feels off.

Just a few weeks ago, in one boring meeting, I managed to ask just the one, perfect question that resulted in reducing one initiative’s development time from 3 months to barely a week. Of course, it’s more complicated than that, but you know; corporate secrets, NDA, hash, hash ;)