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 that if you normally default to our
Speaker 1: long meetings, try experimenting with forty minute ones instead. You
Speaker 1: might be surprised at how much better your schedule feels.
Speaker 1: Over years of studying people's schedules, I found that people
Speaker 1: generally default to a certain length of meeting. For most people,
Speaker 1: that's an hour. There's some people in organizations default to
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. But it's all kind of strange if you
Speaker 1: think about it. I mean, not all business or human
Speaker 1: matters fit neatly into a sixty minutes segment of time.
Speaker 1: Some stuff takes five minutes, some stuff takes all day.
Speaker 1: But rather than ask how much time a given interaction
Speaker 1: will require, whoever is doing the scheduling defaults to the default.
Speaker 1: You ask for time on a person's calendar, and you
Speaker 1: get sixty minutes. If everyone gets sixty minutes, though, you
Speaker 1: wind up stacking these meetings on the hour, usually all
Speaker 1: day long, and there's little time to do anything else
Speaker 1: unless you're disciplined about leaving an hour or two open. Now,
Speaker 1: to my mind, the best approach is to ask while
Speaker 1: scheduling exactly what needs to be covered and how long
Speaker 1: that will take. Then the meeting can be scheduled for
Speaker 1: that length of time, whether it's five minutes, twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: or ninety seven minutes. I also know that's probably not
Speaker 1: going to happen, so instead, another idea is to set
Speaker 1: your default at forty minutes. And here's why this might
Speaker 1: be wise. There's very little that would normally be slotted
Speaker 1: for sixty minutes that couldn't be done in forty There's
Speaker 1: a lot of throat clearing and such in your average meeting.
Speaker 1: A shorter time frame forces discipline, but even better, if
Speaker 1: you schedule these meetings on the hour, you have twenty
Speaker 1: minutes in between each one. If it runs a little over,
Speaker 1: you're still on time. If it gets out when it's
Speaker 1: supposed to, you have twenty minutes to work on other things,
Speaker 1: which is enough time to actually do something as opposed
Speaker 1: to the five to ten minutes people often get between meetings.
Speaker 1: It also allows for more open space if you're strategic.
Speaker 1: For instance, if you start one meeting on the hour
Speaker 1: and then start another at twenty minutes after the hour,
Speaker 1: you can get a forty minute break in between meetings.
Speaker 1: That's enough for lunch or to really get caught up,
Speaker 1: or if you really need to stack in the meetings
Speaker 1: on a particular day, you can do three in the
Speaker 1: time you normally would have done two in your old
Speaker 1: sixty minute default mode. When a schedule appears to have
Speaker 1: no more space for fitting stuff in, that is one
Speaker 1: way to make it work. Now. I know that electronic
Speaker 1: calendars conspire against this, which is one reason I'm not
Speaker 1: a fan of electronic calendars, though I know that's a
Speaker 1: losing battle and a subject for a different time. But
Speaker 1: if you are running a team or an organization, you
Speaker 1: can set whatever times you want. Shortening the default meeting
Speaker 1: time and making it slightly more unorthodox will put a
Speaker 1: lot more discipline in your schedule. Do you have a
Speaker 1: default meeting length, If it's something other than thirty or
Speaker 1: sixty minutes, let me know. You can email me at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast podcast at I heart media dot com. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. You can send me your tips,
Speaker 1: your questions, 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
Speaker 1: dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all
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.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.