One of the challenges with planning a group meeting is trying to organise the time of people in different locations or even timezones. 

You pick a date that suits you and then find that either no one else can make it or only a few can.

Then you think you’ve got a date agreed and someone says they now can’t make it or you can’t find a meeting room at that time.

We're all working differently now. Especially these days, working from home, working from the office or working different hours and days, and in different remote locations.

If you all work for the same organisation and have access to each other’s calendars, it’s a whole lot easier.

However, if you all work for different organisations in different locations, that's not so easy.

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Make planning a group meeting easier

1. Use an app like Doodle or Calendly as a good way of finding the best date for a majority. 

2. Give people a few options and go with the majority, as long as the key people can make it.

3. Be specific and don’t give people too much choice. Tuesday or Wednesday? 11am or 2pm?

4. Find a central location or one that’s more convenient or easy to get to.

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Need somewhere mid-way between two locations? Use a site like whatshalfway.com or meetways.com. You can even find a convenient hotel, restaurant, bar or coffee shop to meet.

5. Give as much notice as possible, especially when planning a group meeting with larger numbers of people. Keep in mind Point 2.

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Face to face or virtual? The advantages of virtual meetings is there's one less thing to worry about. Apart from deciding on Zoom, Teams or Google Meeting?

Depending on how much work is needed, get other people involved to help organise the actual meeting or event itself.

Ask one or more people to take responsibility for organising or confirming some of the arrangements. For instance, location or venue, food and refreshments, transport.

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Remember to take time out and say ‘no’ occasionally. You don’t have to accept every invite you receive or feel obliged to attend every event, just because you’ve been invited.

Decide based on whether it’s the best use of your time? Is it something you want to do or feel you ‘should’ do.

Keep one day a week free of meetings.

Set aside one evening a week or one weekend a month free from any social activity. Use this time to relax, do nothing or just be spontaneous.

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