How to Save Time While Designing Efficient Sessions

This article will discuss how sessions can be productive, enjoyable, and time-efficient for the organizer and attendees.

We’ve all been victims of bad meetings at least once in our lives. They are chaotic, lengthy, tiring, and they leave us thinking: “This meeting could’ve been an email.”

The most common reason for inefficient meetings is the lack of a structured plan. The unclear purpose of a meeting becomes a source of frustration for the attendees. They also reported, as a result, a decrease in productivity. The result? A significant waste of time and money.

But there is another reason often overlooked which has substantial consequences in the success of your meeting: constantly switching from one tool/tab/platform to another.

It’s often necessary to have different tools to reach your meeting’s purpose. But even if the intention is good, recent studies show that frequent media multitasking affects the ability to focus long-term and memorize. Also, the subjects were more prone to errors and spontaneously or deliberately let their minds wander. Not exactly what you’d want from your employees…

Sessions solves this problem because it’s an all-in-one toolbox. It brings together meeting and collaborative tools to create a unique experience for your audience without switching to other platforms and devices. You no longer have to search for other apps to ease your job. You find them all in one place, in Sessions.

But before I dive more into how Sessions saves your time and productivity, here are four general principles you should consider about great meetings.

Before you start preparing for your meeting, ask yourself first: “Is this meeting necessary?”.

There are a lot of ways to communicate with your team. Keep in mind: unproductive meetings decrease the productivity level of employees. Also, remember that Zoom fatigue is real. Maybe there is a different, faster method of solving the issue or getting the answers you need without calling for a meeting.

If possible, replace your conference in favor of other means of communication.

You concluded that a meeting is required. Good. The next step is to have a clear purpose for this meeting. Know precisely what problem needs solving, how you will address it and how long it should take.

Unquestionably the most significant thing in designing a productive meeting is an Agenda. The meeting agenda should cover topics, discussion points, action items, and resources.

A meeting’s agenda should include an overview of what will happen (from greetings to conclusions), who is responsible for each item, and how long each discussion topic should take. And you do that by splitting your meeting into small, transparent and manageable stages.

Sessions Agenda goes a step further.

While on a video call, you probably switch to different tools or platforms to show a video or create a survey. In Sessions, you don’t have to leave the platform to access all these tools. You find them all in one location, saving you time and energy from constantly working in apps, tabs and platforms.

Tools you’d typically use to work on separately from your video-conference platform are now integrated into Sessions. You’re not being forced to leave the platform anymore to use other tools.

Let’s be more specific.

You probably use tools like Calendly, Doodle, or other calendar apps external to video-conferencing platforms to schedule meetings.

Sessions has a built-in Calendar which is also compatible with Google Calendar. You can quickly check your free time slots and schedule future meetings without leaving the platform.

The only solution to show presentations for most platforms is to use the share-screen feature.

Besides not being very professional when attendees may see notifications or other types of personal information like notes tabs opened, it’s also time-consuming.

With Sessions, this issue is easily fixed by embedding presentations directly into your sessions. They will be seamlessly integrated into your meeting at the moment of your choosing, without you losing contact with your participants, chat or agenda by leaving the platform.

The presentation will remain stored for your future use. You don’t have to upload it every time.

Sessions saves you a lot of time and trouble. Using Sessions allows you can insert any YouTube or Vimeo link. It will be played inside our platform, in the time and space allocated in your Agenda. You can also upload videos from your computer and play them in your session.

You can also take advantage of the integration with Twitch and broadcast videos or streaming channels in your gathering. All you have to do is embed a link from Twitch.

You may want to quiz your audience, know their opinion or have feedback — all in real-time. How do you do it? Most people would probably use (again, external tools like) SurveyMonkey or Google Forms. But then again, you need to use a different app, share the link, redirect your participants to it and explain all the steps to follow.

Did I mention Sessions is an all-in-one toolbox? Use the built-in Forms tool to create complex surveys and immediately know your audience’s answers. The questions can be single or multiple-choice, dropdown or plain text. Or you can take advantage of their integrations with Slido and Mentimeter,  tools specially designed for engaging your audiences.

Undoubtedly you will need visual tools if you work in a creative field or brainstorm with your team. As with the other tools mentioned until now, it’s possible to do this while accessing two different platforms simultaneously. One for smartboards or other apps like Miro, another for a video/audio call.

This platform is the perfect blend of a conference platform with creative tools at your disposal. You and your team can take full advantage of their integrations with Miro, Figma, Canva and Adobe XD to create designs or showcase your prototypes directly in Sessions.

Do you need all your team to see and edit a document simultaneously? Easy. Paste a Google Docs link and get your team to contribute. The documents will be visible and editable by all your attendees during your session.

Sessions aims to create a collaborative workspace for great meetings and webinars, designed from start (planning) to finish (execution and follow-up) on their platform.

Check out Sessions and see for yourself the great benefits of using a platform that saves you time and energy while helping you deliver next-level webinars with up to 250 participants.