Why You Should Have Staff Meetings in an Office of One

When you started working for yourself — freelancing or as a solopreneur — you thought the best part would be never having to go to another office meeting. I certainly did. So many office meetings end up being unnecessary or unnecessarily long.

In the former, you waste an hour of your life listening to something that could have been conveyed in a five-sentence email.

In the latter, the information in the meeting was actually useful . . . for the 45 minutes or so the group spent on it, but the other 45 minutes covered non-agenda points, like updates on each person’s children, spouse, motor vehicle(s), and/or pets. It can be difficult to avoid the overlong socialization meeting. We contribute to it because we want to share, or we want to show we are politely concerned and interested in our co-workers’ well-being. But it snowballs. And snowballs. The next thing we know someone is sharing anecdotes and irrelevant medical information about every family member who’s ever had a hip replacement and their different recovery styles — most recently an uncle whom no one in your office has ever met, lives four cities away, and his recovery style is that of a crotchety old turd.

And none of this even touches on meetings ruined by truly toxic leadership styles and power struggles. The kind you hear tales about. The kind I’m thankful not to have witnessed (much).

Meetings are hard to do well.

So we avoid: we get out of going or we answer email during the meeting — I’m guilty of this — which doesn’t help us absorb what’s being discussed.

And we shorten: Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin, tries to only have “standing meetings” and claims decisions get made quicker when no one can sit down.

And sometimes we even plan: Other CEOs try to run better meetings through extensive prep work, or a clear decision-making plan in place before they even being. That said, most managers don’t put as much effort into the structure of meetings.

However much you hate poorly-run meetings, a well-run meeting opens up communication, forces us to articulate problems, and keeps everyone in the loop.

When you are your own boss, it’s easy to assume you know everything going on with your employee (yourself). But you don’t.

Not unless you check in.

To check in — now that I’m an office of one — I schedule a meeting early every morning. It’s me, my coffee, a notebook, and a pen. And usually a cat, too, although she doesn’t contribute much. I touch base with all my business concerns using Morning Pages per The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

In my office of one, Morning Pages are like a daily staff meeting — only better.

There are many detailed explanations online of what Morning Pages are — in short, they’re three pages of stream of consciousness journaling that you write longhand each morning without editing, censure, or pause — but if I may, don’t read a description online. Buy the book or check out a copy from your local library. The book remains wildly popular decades after its release, so most libraries have a few copies. I checked a copy out one summer while in grad school and did the entire 12-week program. It was revelatory.

Initially you use Morning Pages as a mental dumping ground for what’s cluttering up your brain. Once the clutter is out, you naturally focus on what’s important to you.

Sometimes that focus comes to me on the first page, sometimes it doesn’t come until the last line of third page. But I almost always walk away from Morning Pages with a renewed sense of purpose and the knowledge of where I want my day to go. If I don’t have that empowering feeling, I’ll tack on a fourth page to get there. Some days are harder than others.

The best size group for a meeting is one person.

Not only are you defining your daily purpose and articulating your company goals in these meetings-of-one, but by thinking through items on the page, you’re asking yourself to do the sort of thought work and preparation a meeting would require of an employee-participant: articulating a problem’s cause/origins, defining parameters (how much of an issue is it now and when will it turn from issue to Big Problem), contemplating sources of help, and reallocating resources.

It’s not a perfect system for everyone, but if I don’t use it, I plod forward day after day, attempting the same action cycle without analysis or brainstorming new solutions. Unlike the majority of staff meetings, they’re an effective use of my time — the best size group for a meeting is one person; no one takes me off topic or wastes my time, whatever happens is entirely under my control.

Crafting your own big picture review session:

But here’s the biggest reason why you should grab the book, not read about Morning Pages online:

The online articles often tell you that you never reread your Morning Pages. That’s true . . . initially.

You don’t reread your Morning Pages daily, or even weekly, but if you follow the 12 weeks of The Artist’s Way, Cameron will eventually instruct you to review your Morning Pages.

This was terrifying. And embarrassing. The thing that had let me write utter dreck was that no one was ever going to look at it — not even me. Now I had to cringe and open back up to page one.

But you’re not rereading in the same sense as you’d reread a good book. Nor are you editing. You’re skimming, searching for themes, repetitive emotions or stimuli. My client made another change, I don’t know why I took this job. Or repeated desires. Ann has been talking about puffins again. They’re cute. I’d really like to photograph them. Apparently you can go on a puffing-watching cruise in Maine. Or things that depress you, excite you, or have otherwise occupied your mind.

You’re skimming, searching for themes, repetitive emotions or stimuli.

If you do Morning Pages daily, or even just a few times a week, a good time to do a review is quarterly or perhaps bi-monthly. I wouldn’t suggest doing it more frequently than that because you won’t have enough data to see patterns.

What strikes me whenever I review is that there will be something I thought was a mild concern (among many other mild concerns) that clearly stands out as an obsession. When I was unsatisfied in my MFA workshop and needed a workshop that used a different process and didn’t scorn speculative fiction, my decision to stop enduring and seek out help was made in my Morning Pages.

When money became the first and last concern of my day — where was it coming from, how could I eek out more, pay down debt, float money, save money, cut back, cut corners, generate a new income stream without curtailing an old one — I realized it had become an obsession because the edges of my morning pages were all filled with calculations. And after that review, I returned to write my next set of Morning Pages and made the decision to sell the small business I had started and pivot in my career path.

Obsessions are a clear call to the reviewer that your energy should pivot. Toward the goal/obsession if it’s a positive obsession, or away from the obsession if it’s a negative one.

Because data is more reliable than memory:

We think we know what’s going on in our own heads and what emotions we’re feeling, but unless we have a way to track that information, we’re left at the whim of whatever is happening now.

If a client who made your life miserable on the last project, only to sing your praises at the end, comes back and offers you more work, you might be tempted to take it based on that final warm-fuzzy feeling they left you with. But if you’ve done your daily meetings and quarterly review via Morning Pages, you have more data than just a warm-fuzzy feeling. You’ll know that they made your life hellish and probably will again. Maybe you don’t need or want to accept more work from them.

Consistent opportunities to dream big:

Morning pages are also a great place to prototype or plot your pie-in-the-sky ideas in an informal way. Maybe it’ll become a new package you offer clients, maybe it’ll just remain a doodle with lots of exclamation marks (I love doing Morning Pages on unlined paper for the doodle and non-linear opportunities). Doesn’t matter what becomes of the concept. Morning Pages are a safe space.

Or maybe you’ll think it’s just an impossible dream, but when you do a quarterly review you see that you keep coming back to it. I know of no better sign to say do it, try it, you’re in love with this project even if you won’t admit it to yourself. Reach for it and make it real.