Don't waste those minutes before a call

There are better options than deleting emails

Most of my meetings happen on Zoom or Teams these days. I generally like to be punctual, which means that if I have an 11:00 a.m. meeting on the calendar, by 10:55 a.m. I might not be doing much of note. I’m re-checking my inbox to see if there are any new emails to delete, or I’m looking at my to-do list (which hasn’t changed since I looked at it a few minutes prior).

To be sure, this isn’t a ton of fiddling. Wasting five minutes a few times a day is not going to be the difference between a well-lived life and one that is squandered. Still, I do believe that even mere minutes are worth honoring by using them well. We don’t need to do more just to do more, but deleting emails isn’t the only option.

So if you, too, wind up with little bits of time that are hard to use well, you can take your day up a notch by thinking about how to use these bits of time for bits of joy — or at least for something reasonably productive.

Time to connect

One option is to take this pre-meeting time to send celebratory notes. Keep a list of cool things that people you know have done, and then in a free moment, send a note congratulating someone, or complimenting them. Your new colleague would love to get an email saying “You rocked that presentation” — and that will do far more good in the world than deleting 10 emails that don’t really concern you. Likewise, you could send a kid/spouse/friend a “thinking of you” text, and nurture those relationships in a tiny bit of time.

Another option is to spend those 5 minutes doing a healthy but unobtrusive habit. If you spend 5 minutes walking a mere three times per day, you will have added an extra 15 minutes of aerobic activity into your daily schedule, which is 75 minutes a week. If you don’t want to get up from your desk, you could squeeze one of those grip strength gadgets, or close your eyes and do a minute of deep breathing. You could write in a line-a-day journal, or write down something you’re grateful for. Doing any of these things once won’t do much for you, but if you have a lot of meetings, the benefits will compound soon enough.

Many people use these bits of time to read social media posts, but that’s not the only option. You could read something real. I just downloaded an ebook of Emily Dickinson’s poems to my phone, so in the time it takes to read someone’s thinly disguised marketing pitch on Instagram, I can now read poetry.

Time to prepare

Of course, if you think the meeting you’re about to attend will be in any way contentious or intense, you can take those last few minutes to rehearse any answers you’ll give to tough questions, or to think about things that might go awry. You can look over your notes to make sure you’re prepared. Even if the meeting is routine, you can always sign on a few minutes early and see who else is there. This could be a chance to catch up with a colleague or client in an informal way — which could ultimately make the main meeting more productive.

In any case, as you go about your day, you can decide that there’s no need to waste bits of time just because it’s hard to do something big. Little things do add up, and using this time well beats seeing these minutes slip through your hands, like sand through an hourglass. No doubt your meetings already feel like that sometimes. No need to lose the minutes before them too.