I wasn’t aware of this when I was employed full time. I thought I was at work to do the job my boss told me to do and they took responsibility for the time management. All of it. Project delayed? Train late? Teabag in too long? Boss’ fault. Now I charge my time to my clients I know I must give value for money with no room for procrastination.

I work at home in my office and am the source of amusement to friends when they see my hours hanging on the door. Hey if I’ve ever worked these exact hours I’ll give myself the day off, the point is that I have work to do and it’s in my best interests to get it done so I can relax come ‘home time’.

When I work with other people I think – yippee – a bit of banter, a few laughs, then get down to work. It doesn’t always pan out like this. I was in a meeting yesterday in a messenger window (which is another dimension of hell entirely) wondering what was going on. No one in the meeting knew what the purpose of it was – why were we here? What must we leave this meeting knowing?

Today I gave some feedback along the lines of – great idea to have a meeting but could we be more clear on the purpose? I wasn’t sure what was going on yesterday. The reply – I kid ye not – ‘the purpose will become clear as we have more meetings’.

To save you the pain I am about to experience, I thought I’d draw up a list of points to consider when you schedule or attend your next meeting:

1. Have a purpose
   What must you leave the meeting knowing/having?
2. Write down points to be discussed
   If you know what you need to know, follow the logical steps to get there
3. Know what you’ll say
   Prepare your thoughts and take some notes if you need. And speak clearly!
4. Don’t ‘dress up’ the issues
   Get to the point, assume people know the background. If they don’t – they’ll ask
5. Time yourselves
   Start promptly, divide the number of points by the minutes you have and finish on time.

Next time you have a brisk and efficient meeting, do think of me languishing in my phone conference/messenger window.

So why does your ‘stuff’ get so complicated? Damn – you forgot to call someone. You didn’t read that email properly and you can’t remember if Sunday comes before or after 4 o’clock.

I’d like to apply this confusion that we face in our day-to-day work and home dealings with all the information available on the web. Not everybody organises the ‘stuff’ (content) on their websites. Of those that do, not all do so in a logical way. If websites aren’t organised how will your user know how to find their way around? You wouldn’t go on holiday without leaving your work affairs in some sort of reasonably-easy-to-follow state.

The same idea applies to the content on your website. You’re out of the office so your website is picking up the initial enquiry. Bear this in mind when you’re designing and adding to your site. Your user should be able to follow links and instructions without getting confused or annoyed.

Remember the golden rules of writing for web:

• Use short words in short sentences (one point per sentence)
• Use plenty of bullet point lists to allow user to scan the page
• Try not to present too much text – break it up with pictures, sub headings and paragraphs
• Users don’t like scrolling so try to keep your content within one screen length
• You don’t have to be too formal, use “it’s”, “won’t” and “can’t” – it makes for more natural reading.

Your user doesn’t know your company or website inside out like you do so don’t assume anything!

This post was originally published by Christine on Mon, 10/27/2008