I apologise again for repeating myself, but 'Meetings' just won't go away. I've tried to make the rules simple (read them here) but just about everywhere I look, lives are being wasted on unproductive meetings.
That may sound dramatic, but I work in a school which has a weekly staff professional development 'event' and a weekly staff briefing. Both of these routinely start ten minutes late. Reason? Hard to believe, but this was 'to give people time to get here'. Not really a problem is it?
If you are a maths teacher, look away now: 2 x 10 minutes x 38 weeks per year = about 12 hours wasted each year. There are around 50 staff in the school, so this equates to 600 wasted professional hours each year. This is a half a teacher-year. Now, obviously, if any teacher really took six months vacation, they would be instantly dismissed. Parents would be screaming for action and the government would be outraged.
Of course, this barrier is different to most of those on the list: you cannot remove this barrier yourself. If your management team ignores the rules, find some coping mechanisms which work:
a) just don't go to the meeting (in some schools no-one notices)
b) alternate attendance with a colleague
c) schedule yourself some tasks to do in the dead-time