Open your diary: most of your meetings last thirty minutes or an hour. Not because the topic requires it, but because that is what your calendar offers by default. And work stretches to fill the time available.
The rule
Every recurring meeting moves to twenty-five minutes, and every one-hour meeting to fifty. The five or ten minutes saved are used to write down the decision, or simply to arrive on time for the next one.
What makes it work
- A written objective in the invitation, phrased as a question: “Do we choose supplier A or B?”
- Documents read beforehand, not during.
- Someone who keeps time, and is allowed to cut people off.
What we see
In the teams I work with, the first week is uncomfortable: meetings end mid-sentence. By the third, meetings finish early. Time spent in meetings falls by about a quarter, without a single meeting being cancelled.
