This is just a quick tip of the day. Having just changed company’s, I was re-setting up my Outlook profile, you know, adding my signature, etc. when I remembered this setting about meetings that I believe everyone should set:

We’ve all had it happen where we get booked in back to back to back to back meetings, right? No, just me? Anyway, by utilizing this setting, whenever I book a meeting that is 30 min, it only books for 25. Instead of an hour, it’s only 45 minutes. This allows for some margin in my day which is critical to maintaining balance. It provides me a quick break between meetings to stand up and stretch, make a coffee, whatever else might be needed.

We all have enough meetings (I’ll rant on that later). Meetings don’t really need to be 30 or 60 minutes. Have an agenda and set some guardrails such as reducing the time by 5 or 15 minutes. I bet you find you have better meetings with better results!