If you schedule an hour for a meeting and your meeting lasts for an hour, you have failed for three reasons:
- An efficient person completes almost all tasks in less than the allotted time. If you give yourself 60 minutes to complete a task and almost always need all 60 minutes, you’re not being efficient.
- Meetings that end early are always perceived more positively than those that end on time or later. Ending your meeting early is a simple way to improve how people perceive every meeting and the content you share. Missing out on that opportunity is foolish.
- What are the odds that you have precisely 60 minutes of content to cover in your meeting every time?
This means:
- You’re filling time because you are a rule-following completist who oddly believes that an hour scheduled must equal an hour filled.
- You have scheduled too much content for your meeting and will be skipping agenda items.
- You are rushing through agenda items that deserve greater attention.
All three of these are terrible.
Here is the correct mindset for every meeting that you plan:
“I have scheduled 60 minutes for this meeting. I will be thorough but efficient. Every minute under the 60 minutes that I have allotted brings me closer to superhero status.
I want to be a superhero.
Now… which of the items on my agenda could be sent as an email to save everyone some time?”
