Add "attends meetings well" to the list of things that don't belong on resumes or job postings. Along with "good at multitasking." Thanks for the title belong to Mike Monteiro and his post on The Chokehold of Calendars. How many businesses you know that get nothing done for all the meetings people attend?
In my experience, most people don’t schedule their work. They schedule the interruptions that prevent their work from happening. In the case of a business like ours, what clients pay us to make and do happens in the cracks between meetings, or worse, after business hours.
The solution to all those meetings? Just say no! This assumes your job isn't to attend meetings. I also like the statement Mike makes about management: rather than making us crazy with meetings, managers should be protecting their people's time from the intrusion of meetings, so that they can get things done.
This should sound familiar to the multitasking discussion. The solution to multitasking is to stop taking on so much work - and if you are a gatekeeper to protect your people from having stacks and stacks of active work, so they can focus.
[Graphic found as "Meetings" by Iain Farrell - I've seen similar graphics elsewhere]