Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to schedule meetings for fifty minutes, not sixty.
Speaker 1: That way, people can get where they're going and more
Speaker 1: meetings can start on time. As I have studied corporate
Speaker 1: schedules over the years, I have been fascinated to see
Speaker 1: how most organizations, or at least most individual people, have
Speaker 1: some sort of default length for their meetings. Some places
Speaker 1: set the default at thirty minutes, but sixty minutes tends
Speaker 1: to be the most common. Because people wind up in
Speaker 1: a lot of meetings, many of these meetings get scheduled
Speaker 1: back to back. This is a problem because if you
Speaker 1: are in a meeting that runs from nine to ten
Speaker 1: and another one that runs from ten to eleven, you
Speaker 1: are expected to be in two different meetings at precisely
Speaker 1: ten am. If the meetings are in different places, this
Speaker 1: is a physical impossibility. But even if both meetings are
Speaker 1: by video conference, and even if the first ends precisely
Speaker 1: on time, you will still be a minute late to
Speaker 1: the second because it takes a non zero amount of
Speaker 1: time to log in. You also won't have time to
Speaker 1: use the restroom or make any notes about follow ups
Speaker 1: from the first meeting, which means those two dous may
Speaker 1: fade to the back of your mind until they urgently
Speaker 1: boil back up. And of course, many meetings do not
Speaker 1: end on time. That makes people even later for all
Speaker 1: subsequent meetings, so all meetings after the first starting a
Speaker 1: discombobulated way, as you just side whether to wait for
Speaker 1: the latecomers or shift the agenda accordingly. Fortunately, this is
Speaker 1: a comparatively easy problem to solve. Indeed, it is a
Speaker 1: problem that most high schools have solved. You need to
Speaker 1: create a passing period between scheduled events so people can
Speaker 1: get from one commitment to another. If you are in
Speaker 1: a leadership role at your organization, one obvious way to
Speaker 1: do this is to set the norm of having meetings
Speaker 1: start on the hour and end at ten minutes until
Speaker 1: the hour. That is, they are all fifty minutes long
Speaker 1: instead of sixty minutes long. That way, even participants with
Speaker 1: back to back meetings aren't inevitably late for all of
Speaker 1: their meetings of the day except the first. You can
Speaker 1: even encourage staff to adjust their outlook settings to shorten
Speaker 1: the duration of all events so that meetings default to
Speaker 1: a specific amount of time before the hour. A few
Speaker 1: organizations choose a corollary to this idea, that is, all
Speaker 1: meetings start ten minutes after the hour and end on
Speaker 1: the hour. That can also work, but it is slightly
Speaker 1: less intuitive to explain to people outside the organization. So
Speaker 1: I like on the hour and ending ten minutes till now.
Speaker 1: It is true that fifty minutes is less than sixty minutes,
Speaker 1: and if you were accustomed to filling every single one
Speaker 1: of those sixty minutes efficiently in all of your meetings,
Speaker 1: then you may have to rethink things. But in my experience,
Speaker 1: there are very few corporate meetings that were scheduled for
Speaker 1: sixty minutes but that could not take fifty Indeed, since
Speaker 1: many meetings start late because of latecomers from previous as meetings,
Speaker 1: the material may often be taken closer to fifty minutes. Anyway,
Speaker 1: as people get antsy once the clock strikes the hour
Speaker 1: and they know they need to go to the next thing.
Speaker 1: Best to acknowledge this now. If you are not in
Speaker 1: a leadership role, this might be a bit harder to establish,
Speaker 1: but you can certainly make it happen for any meetings
Speaker 1: that are under your control. If you know people are
Speaker 1: going to be late, plan on starting at five minutes
Speaker 1: after the hour and then end ten minutes before. Yep,
Speaker 1: that means turning your sixty minute meetings into forty five
Speaker 1: minute ones. But hey, you listen to this podcast. You
Speaker 1: thrive on doing things effectively. I am betting that you
Speaker 1: could figure it out. Of course, in the grand scheme
Speaker 1: of things, it would be better to just have fewer meetings. Ideally,
Speaker 1: when a meeting happens, it is because something needs to
Speaker 1: change in the world that can only result from bringing
Speaker 1: those people together. The length of the meeting is determined
Speaker 1: by what needs to happen, and not by some arbitrary
Speaker 1: clock time. If you need twenty minutes, you set the
Speaker 1: meeting for twenty minutes. If you need thirty seven point
Speaker 1: five minutes, you ask for that, and everyone is going
Speaker 1: to assume your agenda is incredibly well thought through. But
Speaker 1: if that is not going to happen, the next best
Speaker 1: solution is to shorten all meetings just a little. People
Speaker 1: won't be late, they can catch their breath, they can
Speaker 1: think about what just happened, and then they can start
Speaker 1: the next thing. This is a fairly simple fix that
Speaker 1: can have a big impact in terms of increasing focus
Speaker 1: and avoiding a sense of being overwhelmed. In the meantime.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four,
Speaker 1: then Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me
Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media
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Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying
Speaker 1: in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio.
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