3 reasons to stop meeting at the top of the hour (and help others to be on time)
One of my pet peeves about organizing meetings is the standard meeting time. No matter the time zone, everybody always wants to meet at the top of the hour - for exactly an hour (or - if I am lucky, for exactly 30 min). From a mathematical point of view it makes sense to start a meeting at ‘00 - from a human perspective not so much. So here’s my proposal:
Set your standard meeting time to ‘05 min past the hour.
Restrict every meeting to a max of 45 min, finishing at ‘50 past the hour.
Have a coffee/publish the meeting notes/ take a mini-break in between meetings
Top of the hour meetings never start at the top of the hour
There’s always somesone who needs a quick coffee because they JUST came out of another meeting. The conference room door only opens two min after the booked time. Your remote colleague just realized that the headset is in the other room.
By starting the meeting at 5 min past the hour, you allow everyone to get settled (literally) on time. In my experience, people tend to remember a 10:05 meeting as a 10h meeting - showing up very much on time.
A stressful start means a stressful meeting
You don’t want people to be stressed out before the meeting has even started. Allowing for a 5 min breather in between back-to-back calls can offer a nice change of pace for those high-octane meeting attendees. By allowing everyone to get into the room on time, both physically and mentally, you are improving the quality of the entire meeting.
Focus: If you can do it in 60 min, you can do it in 45
There is no neuroscientific evidence that the human brain works in 60 min cadences. Most studies (and anecdotal evidence) recommend anything between 25 min to 52 min of concentrated work before the brain needs a break. Unless you have highly interactive meetings, many of your listeners will most likely space out after about half an hour. Use this knowledge to your advantage and make sure that you structure the meeting so that the most important questions/decisions are up first. And when you are done - get out of there. Even if you have the room booked until the top of the hour.