We spent so much time in a 2-hour meeting that could have been an email. You’ll notice the moment where there’s no specific agenda—or worse, if the meeting has one but nobody sticks to it.

It is incredibly easy to run an unproductive meeting. Dragging discussions on for hours delays your team from getting back to work and making actual progress.

Follow these tips if you want to frustrate your team with long, agonizing meetings:

No set-up until everyone is in the room

Why would you want to connect your laptop to the projectors 5 minutes before everyone arrives? Let your team see you plugging in the right connector cable and configuring the display like a pro. If it doesn’t work, don’t bother to call IT for help until 10 minutes or so have passed. Your team will surely appreciate the effort of being in a meeting that doesn’t start on time.

Review previous discussions while adding nothing new

Allocate the first 30 minutes to the “Confirmation of minutes of the previous meeting.” By pointing out notes from the previous discussion, you can deliberately remind your team which tasks are still in progress. At this point, avoid adding anything of value to the table. Instead, make it clear that everyone should focus on completing their tasks, and warn them not to waste time on any unproductive activities.

Don’t prepare an agenda, or skip it if you have one

Outlines for a meeting agenda keep the schedule on track to wrap up the meeting on time. An agenda makes the entire discussion more focused and involved. Avoid this by walking through your train of thought and talking endlessly on irrelevant topics rather than keeping everyone focused on the goals of the meeting.

Avoid making decisions during the meeting

A good meeting is about collecting information, weighing options, and coming up with a solution. When running an unproductive meeting, you shouldn’t come up with a concrete decision; instead, let your team assume what the next action plan is. You can always follow up on it at the next meeting.

Conclusion

I don’t have a problem with meetings, only those unproductive ones that waste everyone's time. Meetings are essential to get everybody on the same page, working towards the same goal. But they are worth nothing unless everyone actually starts getting things done.

This article was originally published on Medium.com.