Tips for scheduling better meetings

Don’t schedule the meeting to end early, instead schedule it to start late

I am sure you all have scheduled or received an invite for a meeting that aims to end early, for e.x. 10:00 to 10:25. How many of them ended on or before 10:25? 10:28? 10:30? I bet that most of them ended closer to 10:30 than 10:25.

Then acknowledge it and start the meeting 5 minutes past 10. This gives attendees to take a couple of minutes to park their open threads. Take a breather between the meeting marathons. It also lets the people who joined earlier to just chit chat and socialize.

Reserve more time than you think you need

No one has ever complained of a meeting ending earlier than scheduled. Everyone has complained about having endless “follow up meetings”. Combine these two and get in a habbit of reserving more time than you think it should take. This should allow enough time for any spill over discussions.

Here is my formula, if I think it

• should take 5 minutes … send it as a message or an email.
• should take 15 minutes … I block 30 minutes
• should take 30 minutes … I block 1 hour
• should take an hour … I block 2 hours and make sure I have a 10 minute break scheduled
• should take more than an hour … then I start planning a half day workshop

Enable and enforce preparation for the meeting

Every attendee should know what they are expected to bring to the meeting. They should have access to both adequate time and information they need to do their part.

If the people still show up to the meeting unprepared, I recommend calling off the meeting and encouraging the people to then use the time to prepare. There is no point spending time in a meeting where people aren’t prepared. If people keep showing up unprepared, I think that is one of the problems you should solve first and fast!