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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is to schedule meetings for fifty minutes, not sixty.

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Speaker 1: That way, people can get where they're going and more

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Speaker 1: meetings can start on time. As I have studied corporate

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Speaker 1: schedules over the years, I have been fascinated to see

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Speaker 1: how most organizations, or at least most individual people, have

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Speaker 1: some sort of default length for their meetings. Some places

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Speaker 1: set the default at thirty minutes, but sixty minutes tends

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Speaker 1: to be the most common. Because people wind up in

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Speaker 1: a lot of meetings, many of these meetings get scheduled

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Speaker 1: back to back. This is a problem because if you

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Speaker 1: are in a meeting that runs from nine to ten

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Speaker 1: and another one that runs from ten to eleven, you

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Speaker 1: are expected to be in two different meetings at precisely

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Speaker 1: ten am. If the meetings are in different places, this

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Speaker 1: is a physical impossibility. But even if both meetings are

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Speaker 1: by video conference, and even if the first ends precisely

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Speaker 1: on time, you will still be a minute late to

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Speaker 1: the second because it takes a non zero amount of

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Speaker 1: time to log in. You also won't have time to

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Speaker 1: use the restroom or make any notes about follow ups

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Speaker 1: from the first meeting, which means those two dous may

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Speaker 1: fade to the back of your mind until they urgently

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Speaker 1: boil back up. And of course, many meetings do not

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Speaker 1: end on time. That makes people even later for all

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Speaker 1: subsequent meetings, so all meetings after the first starting a

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Speaker 1: discombobulated way, as you just side whether to wait for

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Speaker 1: the latecomers or shift the agenda accordingly. Fortunately, this is

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Speaker 1: a comparatively easy problem to solve. Indeed, it is a

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Speaker 1: problem that most high schools have solved. You need to

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Speaker 1: create a passing period between scheduled events so people can

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Speaker 1: get from one commitment to another. If you are in

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Speaker 1: a leadership role at your organization, one obvious way to

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Speaker 1: do this is to set the norm of having meetings

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Speaker 1: start on the hour and end at ten minutes until

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Speaker 1: the hour. That is, they are all fifty minutes long

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Speaker 1: instead of sixty minutes long. That way, even participants with

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Speaker 1: back to back meetings aren't inevitably late for all of

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Speaker 1: their meetings of the day except the first. You can

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Speaker 1: even encourage staff to adjust their outlook settings to shorten

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Speaker 1: the duration of all events so that meetings default to

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Speaker 1: a specific amount of time before the hour. A few

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Speaker 1: organizations choose a corollary to this idea, that is, all

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Speaker 1: meetings start ten minutes after the hour and end on

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Speaker 1: the hour. That can also work, but it is slightly

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Speaker 1: less intuitive to explain to people outside the organization. So

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Speaker 1: I like on the hour and ending ten minutes till now.

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Speaker 1: It is true that fifty minutes is less than sixty minutes,

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Speaker 1: and if you were accustomed to filling every single one

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Speaker 1: of those sixty minutes efficiently in all of your meetings,

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Speaker 1: then you may have to rethink things. But in my experience,

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Speaker 1: there are very few corporate meetings that were scheduled for

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Speaker 1: sixty minutes but that could not take fifty Indeed, since

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Speaker 1: many meetings start late because of latecomers from previous as meetings,

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Speaker 1: the material may often be taken closer to fifty minutes. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: as people get antsy once the clock strikes the hour

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Speaker 1: and they know they need to go to the next thing.

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Speaker 1: Best to acknowledge this now. If you are not in

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Speaker 1: a leadership role, this might be a bit harder to establish,

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Speaker 1: but you can certainly make it happen for any meetings

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Speaker 1: that are under your control. If you know people are

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Speaker 1: going to be late, plan on starting at five minutes

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Speaker 1: after the hour and then end ten minutes before. Yep,

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Speaker 1: that means turning your sixty minute meetings into forty five

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Speaker 1: minute ones. But hey, you listen to this podcast. You

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Speaker 1: thrive on doing things effectively. I am betting that you

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Speaker 1: could figure it out. Of course, in the grand scheme

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Speaker 1: of things, it would be better to just have fewer meetings. Ideally,

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Speaker 1: when a meeting happens, it is because something needs to

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Speaker 1: change in the world that can only result from bringing

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Speaker 1: those people together. The length of the meeting is determined

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Speaker 1: by what needs to happen, and not by some arbitrary

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Speaker 1: clock time. If you need twenty minutes, you set the

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Speaker 1: meeting for twenty minutes. If you need thirty seven point

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Speaker 1: five minutes, you ask for that, and everyone is going

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Speaker 1: to assume your agenda is incredibly well thought through. But

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Speaker 1: if that is not going to happen, the next best

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Speaker 1: solution is to shorten all meetings just a little. People

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Speaker 1: won't be late, they can catch their breath, they can

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Speaker 1: think about what just happened, and then they can start

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Speaker 1: the next thing. This is a fairly simple fix that

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Speaker 1: can have a big impact in terms of increasing focus

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Speaker 1: and avoiding a sense of being overwhelmed. In the meantime.

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making

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Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to

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Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,

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Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four,

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Speaker 1: then Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me

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Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media

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Speaker 1: dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all

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Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying

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Speaker 1: in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I

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Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows. Yeah m hm