To Hell with Back-to-Back Meetings! (A Rant)
It's pretty much physically impossible to leave one meeting and arrive at another at the same time. And what about your biological needs after sitting in a chair staring at a screen for an hour?
Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? The vast majority of my leadership coaching clients say they're subject to days full of back-to-back meetings. It's just insane. Can't we just start telling people, "Sure, I can make your meeting, but I need to leave at quarter of to clear my mind for my next important meeting." (If the meeting's not important, why bother?)
Any organization who hasn't yet instituted an organization-wide 25 and 50-minute meeting policy, especially during this era of burnout after a year from blurred work/home boundaries, needs to strongly consider it. I personally prefer the 45-minute meeting rather than 50, because 50 can too easily get rounded up to the hour.
A principle I learned in Tim Ferriss' book, The Four Hour Workweek, is that work expands to fill the time you give it. A 45-minute meeting will serve you just fine. If it would have been a 90-minute meeting, make it 75. Maybe you'll even sit up a little straighter and stay a bit more focused knowing you have some breathing room after.
I accidentally booked a couple back-to-back meetings when a new project came on my plate a few weeks ago. I quickly learned that is something I need to control against. Leaving one meeting and joining the next felt like having whiplash. If we're listening and engaged, the people and the conversation in a good gathering leaves an imprint on our minds. In order to be present during the next meeting, our brains literally need a reset period. For me, that's often going to the kitchen to grab a snack and refill my water. Sometimes it's sitting in the sun for five minutes.
Many of you may feel you don't have control over your calendars. That's one reason I think the 45- or 50-minute meeting should be instituted organization-wide and modeled by the executive leadership teams. That said, you may have more control than you think. When you're calling the meeting, make it 45 minutes. Design it well and do a small amount of up front planning that will model for the others that this is not only possible, but superior to a 60-minute meeting because it has ripple effects.
When you're attending a meeting and not running it, you can kindly ask, is there any way we can keep this meeting to 45 minutes? Much easier in a small meeting. If not, you can always say you have to leave at a certain time. If none of this works, you can block 15 minutes after that meeting. I know these aren’t always easy things to ask for, but you do have options.
I try to leave 30 minutes between meetings, especially with 1-1 coaching clients where my focus is completely maxed out. It's also the way that I can stay on top of email and the other small tasks that pile up and grate on me if they have nowhere to go.
My main point is this: why are we killing ourselves with the back to back meetings? No one I talk to actually feels it's the best use of their time. It's almost like we're caught in this collective trap of asking for meetings from others and feeling we must say yes when we are asked. It's creating a constant feeling of drowning, or at least being "behind the wave." If we want to surf, we have to ride the front of the wave.
Enough is enough with the back-to-back meetings! Upgrade the quality of your meetings and get the essential work done in less time than you thought. Quality over quantity. Less is more. Breathing room. Time to reset. Hell, time to just go to the damn bathroom.
