How to keep people focussed during post-lunch meetings

Directly or shortly after lunch is never a good time to make a presentation of any kind or to conduct a meeting with your colleagues. Attention spans tend to wane…

Directly or shortly after lunch is never a good time to make a presentation of any kind or to conduct a meeting with your colleagues. Attention spans tend to wane and a certain lethargy can very easily creep in among your audience.

It’s a fact of life though that sooner or later you might have to conduct a meeting during this dreaded post-lunch slot. So here’s our tips on maintaining the attention of your audience or your colleagues under these circumstances.

Don’t be monotonous

This is more easily said than done of course but if you can find a way to make sure that the content and the focus of your meeting is not too monotonous then you’ve got a much better chance of keeping the attention levels up among your attendees. You might not have much control of the subject matter but you should nonetheless be aiming to break up your discussions and make each element of what you’re saying seem quite distinct and different from the last.

Mix things up visually

Another way to keep people from falling into a pattern of essentially not listening to what you’re talking about in an after-lunch meeting is by mixing things up visually. So, rather than just using PowerPoint as your presentation tools, you might want to use a wider variety of tools or software platforms to re-engage your audiences with whatever it is you’re focussed on at various junctures.

Make it interactive

If people know there is an interactive element to your meeting then they are considerably more likely to make sure they concentrate on what’s being said in case they are called upon to contribute to the discussion. So you could throw in a Q&A portion of proceedings to help focus minds in your meeting room.

Be succinct

In a business or an organisational meeting of any kind it’s important not to cut corners and to ensure that the gathering serves its purpose as intended. But, when your meeting is being conducted post-lunch it can help to be succinct and to get your messages across as concisely and efficiently as possible. This doesn’t mean rushing but rather making sure that the key points come across with a worthwhile degree of clarity.

Work a bit harder

In general terms, it can be that a post-lunch meeting requires more effort of its leader to deliver the same results in terms of engagement and understanding as the same meeting conducted at a different time. People are more prone to lapses in concentration and generally to just switching off entirely so going the extra mile to mix things up and keep them interesting on some level can go a long way towards ensuring your meeting is as worthwhile and productive as you need it to be.

Joseph Lofthouse

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