Cut Down on Meetings - Well, at Least Meeting Invites

Ah, meetings. Can’t live with ’em, and probably can’t do your job without ’em.

From the Monday morning planning meeting over doughnuts to the Friday afternoon review session over pizza, meetings are one of those necessities in life. But you know what’s not necessary? Setting up new meeting invites for the same old meetings. Instead, use Outlook to set up a recurring meeting so you and your colleagues can see it planned out on your calendars in advance and no one has to remember to schedule it every time.

To set up a recurring meeting:

       1. In Outlook, start by creating a new meeting. On the Home tab, in the New group, click New Items, and select Meeting from the list.  

      2.   Now add the details: who’s coming, what’s being discussed, the location, the date and time of the upcoming meeting, and—most importantly—who’s bringing the doughnuts.

       3. To make this a recurring meeting, on the Meeting tab, in the Options group, click Recurrence.

       4. In the dialog box that opens, in the Recurrence Pattern area, select how often the meeting will recur.

       5. Next, in the Range of Recurrence area, specify how long or how many times the meeting will recur.

       6. That’s it. Click OK and then Send, and you’ve just saved yourself the hassle of setting up all those meetings individually.

Whether your meeting is every other day, twice a month for the next six months, or specific dates every year, you’ve got it covered.