Efficient ways to find a suitable meeting time that works for everyone

How to find a meeting time that is convenient and works for everyone 

Finding a mutually beneficial meeting time that suits everyone or finding a meeting time when everyone is available is crucial for fostering inclusivity, productivity and perhaps most importantly, cohesion. So often we fire off meeting requests and invitations without properly considering how that meeting will fit into someone’s busy schedule or crammed calendar. 

When all relevant participants can actually attend a meeting or scheduled engagement, it ensures that diverse perspectives and valuable insights are represented which in turn leads to better decision-making opportunities and problem solving. 

There are two ways you can go about negotiating adequate and suitable meeting times that works for everyone:

1. One is the standard method of sending out booking links and showing your availability upfront. 
2. The second option is proposing availability and suggesting a specific date and time and waiting for approval or confirmation thereof. 

While both are perfectly acceptable and easily administered via the OnceHub system, sometimes additional information, context and strategy is required to conduct successful meetings. 

Accommodating everyone’s availability demonstrates respect for their work-life balance and commitments while showing respect for what they do and how they go about their professional obligations on a daily basis. In doing so, you’re also encouraging greater engagement and commitment to the objectives behind having the meeting in the first place. 

By being mindful of others’ schedules and being proactive about finding a suitable time to meet, you’re essentially side-stepping potential scheduling conflicts that could arise from a meeting request sent out of nowhere. By avoiding these potential rescheduling scenarios, you’re mitigating the need for additional scheduling back and forth to try and ascertain a suitable meeting time and saving yourself time to boot. 

Ultimately, prioritizing a meeting time that works for everyone builds stronger working relationships, enhances accountability and contributes to a more successful engagement prospect. Let’s take a look at some strategies and tips you can employ to ensure that you’re meeting with people in a way that works best for everyone. 

Gathering context for meeting times that suit everyone

Gathering context from participants is crucial in finding suitable meeting times that works for everyone because it ensures effective communication and collaboration within a small or large group. People's schedules are diverse and can be affected by various factors like time zones, personal commitments, and workloads. By understanding the context of each participant's availability, such as their preferred working hours, time zone differences, and any potential conflicts, meeting organizers can identify overlapping windows that accommodate everyone's needs.

Without this context, scheduling conflicts may arise, leading to reduced attendance and diminished productivity. Furthermore, gathering participant context demonstrates respect for their individual situations, fostering a positive and inclusive work environment. It shows that their time and contributions are valued, enhancing team morale and cooperation. By considering the context of each participant, organizers can also optimize meeting times to ensure peak performance and engagement during the discussion. In essence, gathering context from participants not only facilitates the practicality of scheduling but also supports effective teamwork and overall productivity in any collaborative endeavor.

Share your availability upfront when trying to find best meeting time

Sharing your availability upfront when trying to find meeting time with prospects is essential to communicating effectively and collaborating that is productive and good for future planning. When individuals share their availability in this way, it enables teams, participants and relevant parties to schedule meetings and coordinate tasks in a way that minimizes conflicts and maximizes participation. 

Upfront communication like this streamlines the decision -making process and reduces the need for time-consuming scheduling activities. By sharing availability, you demonstrate your commitment to a project and a willingness to engage with others. This openness also fosters a culture of transparency and respect within engagement opportunities as we all know how little time is available and how sorely it needs to be respected. 

Additionally, knowing and being aware of availability and resources allows people to anticipate potential challenges or gaps, making it easier to prioritize and designate essential tasks further down the line. 

Sharing availability upfront empowers people to work cohesively, stay organized and make the most of everyone’s contributions, leading to improved productivity and overall success. 

Share meeting polls to determine most suitable meeting times

Sending out polls and feedback receiving mechanisms can significantly improve your scheduling process. Meeting polls allow for greater inclusivity by essentially involving all participants in the decision making process leading up to an engagement. 

When everyone has the opportunity to vote on their preferred meeting times, availability and capacity it promotes a sense of ownership that ensures the chosen time works well for the majority of everyone that is expected to attend.

These kinds of polls streamline the scheduling process and save time for both the meeting organizer as well as the attendees. Instead of engaging in lengthy and laborious email threads and scheduling back and forth, a poll can provide a centralized and efficient way to collect responses. Many of these meeting poll infrastructures also have record-keeping functionalities that allow you to store responses, which can be extremely useful when planning future engagements. 

They’re also great at facilitating internal collaboration and engagement as it minimizes the awkwardness of having to double triple check time zones and global availability.

Prepare an agenda or executive summary so people can prioritize meetings if necessary

Meeting agendas are good things to have as a rule, as they help to orientate others in your understanding and align with your goals for the meeting. Try to always include at least a brief summary of the contents of your pending engagement so that people can ascertain priority and urgency of their attendance and make provisions if need be. 

By sharing a well structured agenda with all of your participants in advance, you set clear expectations and provide an outline of what will be discussed. The agenda serves as somewhat of a roadmap, guiding the flow of your next meeting and helping relevant parties connect and engage with the information quicker. 

These agendas also help attendees prioritize their time and efforts by highlighting the most critical topics and allocating appropriate time for each item. By giving your attendees some conceptual footing before meeting, you’re opening up an avenue for a deeper and more engaged discussion as they will have had adequate time to prepare questions or gain understanding. 

Be mindful to meet different time zones when setting up meetings

The age old conundrum! Time zones can wreak havoc on a well structured calendar and dash any plans of engagement in no time at all. Always try to accommodate varying time zones and business hours so that your intended engagement can actually take place. This is easily achievable through web apps and scheduling software, so make sure you use a good time so that you’re not missing out on opportunities due to an erroneous calculation of time zones. 

Make sure to avoid technical mistakes while finding the best meeting times

Technical mistakes are particularly glaring when considering how easy it is to avoid them. Sometimes we forget to tick all of our boxes when proposing, requesting or accepting meeting times and this can lead to a rocky start to some of our engagements. Make sure to be mindful of steps and processes in your meeting setup that require technological intervention and try to stay ahead of any potential mishaps that could occur. It’s always a good habit to check attendees to see who is participating, confirm the right links and resources have been sent ahead of time and to gauge whether time zone differences were accommodated for. 

Use an automated scheduling system to find a meeting time that works for everyone

The best way to ensure you’re booking time with others in a way that is convenient for all, is by making use of an automated scheduling app like OnceHub. Why get stuck in the nitty gritty of everyday scheduling when you can make use of a simple and intuitive app that does it for you. 

Reasons why OnceHub is great for finding meeting times that work for everyone

• Availability syncing 
• Time zone conversions 
• Customizable time preferences
• Meeting polls and group scheduling 
• Personalized booking pages 
• Reminders and notifications

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