Why are meetings 30 minutes long?
The Gripe
Did you ever wonder why all calendar applications default to 30-minute meetings? Everything can be personalized in the digital age — at least that’s what we’re told, right? “Our product works the way you want it to. You will be ten times more productive!”
Why is it then that every calendar application I have tried defaults to 30 minutes, with 15-minute increments? Many of us are in too many meetings every day, and often they are scheduled back to back to back…without any breaks. Isn’t it absurd that in the age of productivity apps, we must conform to some rule of thumb or settings that a developer 30 years ago thought made sense?
🍅I am a huge fan of the Pomodoro technique and try my best to set meetings for 25 minutes (or less).
Pros
Cons
None!
The Solution
First, follow Elon’s three rules for meetings — is the appointment even necessary?
No large meetings.
If you're not adding value to a meeting, leave.
No frequent meetings.
Second, submit feature requests to your calendar maker to allow users to set the default meeting time to any duration they want to.
Third, when you create a meeting invite, manually set the end time to allow at least five minutes until the next meeting. The shorter you make the appointment, the better-prepared everyone should be.
👉 Make sure you include an agenda or the question needed to be answered during the meeting.