Modern calendar apps make one hour a kind of default appointment, and it seems like a nice, average time slot for meeting planners. The 45 Minute Meeting is a movement to make meetings shorter, both on the calendar and in the room.
Photo by cambodia4kidsorg.
Sure, it is, at its heart, a promotional tool wielded by the meeting scheduler webapp TimeBridge (which we've previously covered), but its heart is in the right place. TimeBridge has changed its default meeting allotment to 45 minutes, asked Twitter users to write how they'll trim down their meetings, and posted some of their own suggestions:
- Stay tuned in: Phones off, laptops closed (except for the note-taker).
- Manage the clock: Call out, reign-in or punish the meeting jokesters, complainers and timewasters. Make sure you're not allowing the first agenda item to consume the entire meeting.
- Give ownership: Assign owners to all bullets or action items. Make sure to summarize the actions at the end of the meeting.
Evergreen advice, for sure, but easy to forget, too. If you can make your your one-hour meetings 45 minutes, or struggle valiantly but fail, we're listening to your war stories in the comments.
Send an email to Kevin Purdy, the author of this post, at kevin@lifehacker.com.
