All meetings should start at a time ending in 5 on the minutes side. Eg. 10:35 is a valid start time.
All meetings should end at a time ending in 0 minutes. Eg. 10:30 is a valid end time.
Everyone needs some time for composure (travel time, bathroom, drinks etc.), sometimes you just have to run the last meeting a few mins over. By starting on the *5 and setting that as the start time on the calendar you give yourself this time. This is especially true at senior levels where you have strings of back to back meetings. The expectation is then set. You show up at 10:35 precisely and no one’s waiting 5 mins.
I will say this is significantly psychologically superior to the alternative where things start on the 0 and end on the 5, because people pay much more attention to the start of meetings than the end time. If the end time is set 5 min before people intuitively expect, it will regularly run over and consume your buffer, whereas people will essentially never start early.
Hmm, my experience with people who are chronically late is that the specific time doesn't matter. This sounds good in theory, but I think those people would just show up at 10:40.
Google Calendar has a "speedy meeting" option that kind of does this, but it makes meetings end a few minutes earlier. Unfortunately, nobody really pays attention to exactly when the meeting ends, so you just end up losing this window.
I don't know how everyone is missing this, but it means that if everyone follows this rule you cant ever have back to back meetings. There will always be a 5 munite buffer. This isnt solving for reminders or any of that junk. This is forcefully giving you a window to have the previous meeting go over a touch or going to the bathroom even if your day is slammed.
When I taught there as a lecturer nobody bothered to onboard me, because academia. The one thing I made sure I knew before I started was what time do classes start and end, because I knew my students would know. And my undergrad started five minutes after and ended five minutes before, while my grad school started on the hour and ended ten minutes before, so I was aware the custom varied from place to place.
It worked out nicely when I had therapy just off-campus at 11 AM (11-11:50, because that's how therapists do it) immediately before a class that started at noon (12:10 - 1:00), although sometimes I was emotionally a wreck while teaching...
In Sweden -- or at least in Uppsala, that is, which is the only university I have attended -- it was (and probably still is?) called "akademisk kvart", the "academic quarter" (of an hour). Everything was said to begin at <<some hour>>, but that was understood to mean at quarter past <<the hour>>.
This is close to how my alma mater functioned, everything ended on the 50 or the 20 and started on 00 or 30. Just enough time to climb up out of a basement on one end, make the hike, and descend to the furthest classroom on the other. With lectures the content is rigidly planned and controlled by one person, so the end time is more respected than more open-ended and participatory work meetings I find.
>All meetings should start at a time ending in 5 on the minutes side. Eg. 10:35 is a valid start time.
This is an excellent example of an ADHD accommodation that costs nothing to implement, and is absolutely welcomed by neurotypical people too.
Same goes for having meeting-free days, and a culture that teaches people to be mindful of interruptions[1].
Unsurprisingly, it's something companies like Meta have (software engineering tends to attract ADHD folks because Hyperfocus[2] is a trait of something ironically called attention deficit, and coding marathons are a great example of that in action).
Programmers talk about Flow all the time, but that's what Hyperfocus can easily mistaken for[3]. If you find it difficult to get started[4], but once you get going, you forget the world exists and find it difficult to switch out of whatever you're doing[5], and stopping feels painful.. yeah, that's hyperfocus.
Which, along with being late all the time[6], is an ADHD trait. ADHD is surely the worst-named affliction.[7]
Found out the hard way at the age of 34. Sharing my experience so that y'all don't have to keep on living your life on hard mode, and driving your Lamborghini brain on unplowed fields when it was built for a different purpose.
If you find yourself relating to the article we're discussing (Late Again), you'll likely find the links below interesting.
There's still a lot of room there for issues, even if every meeting actually does end on time.
Say on person or team takes that to always have meetings end at :25 or :55, another always ends at :35 or :05, and another team say :15 and :45 for any meeting end times.
In my experience meetings seem to fall into common durations, always in intervals of 15 minutes but most common at 30 minutes or an hour.
I'd go even more strict on times and say meetings must start at :00 or :30, and always end by :25 or :55. That enforces a 5 minute window and standardizes start times without preventing longer meetings that need to run for 90 minutes or longer.
With digital calendars, I just set a reminder 5 minutes before all my meetings. Whether it starts at 10:30, 10:35 or 10:47, I will always have time pee or grab a snack or prepare the meeting or even all of that.
Not if people schedule back to back meetings. The point of starting it on the 5 and ending on 0 is that you cant schedule a meeting with no gap after the previous. You will always have at least 5 minutes.
People are late, because they know that everyone will wait for them.
Waiting for others is a sign that it's okay to be late.
When a meeting starts at 10:30, and some people come at 10:30, there is
often a social pressure to show some courtesy and wait for the rest. But
who shows the courtesy for people who actually came on time? These
people follow the rules and are being _punished_ for it.
People should just start the meeting when it's scheduled. Start it at
10:30. If there's nobody on the meeting, I would start it regardless,
how stupid this might sound.
These are the worst type of managers. The ones who consistently arrive late and say "sorry, I've been in back-to-backs all day" or, "sorry, meeting with the big boss" - the subtle implication is that they are the only ones that busy or with meetings that important.
Those same managers will take ages to respond to emails because they are "so busy", but yet they insist on inserting themselves into all decision-making, because obviously nobody else can make a decision without their approval.
From my experience chronic late-attendance to meetings usually happens when people fail to end meetings with a hard stop. The long-running previous meetings cause the next to start late.
If someone is that consistently a bit late, I wonder if it’s something they experience with the same degree of moral and intentional charge as the author does. I wonder, for that matter, if the author and coworkers have taken up their concerns directly with the chronic latecomer.
Perspective from someone who identifies as a tidsoptimist, Swedish for “time optimist”:
> I'm sure it seems ridiculous to people who are always on time. They may be puzzled as to why such a name was coined for such a circumstance and why anyone would spend time and effort contemplating it. But such people exist, such as myself.
> I am not someone who enjoys being late everywhere. In reality, I dislike keeping people waiting, but honestly, my punctual arrivals don't happen very often.
The article we're discussing (as well the one you linked, and the one written by Tim Urban on the same issue[1], and the words you wrote) is a universal ADHD experience.
Figuring out that this is how my brain works helped immensely. Turns out, there is no need to make up new terms (tidsoptimist, "chronically late person", etc). The words have already been invented. And many people have already worked out solutions, mitigation strategies (...and meds[2]).
I hope that my links above will help some people learn something about themselves, and for others - to understand their friends and colleagues better.
And for hell's sake, let's take the moral charge out of lateness itself. I'm not saying that it should be acceptable: to the extent that someone being late affects other people, there may (and should be!) consequences.
But being late has a stigma even when it doesn't affect anyone else.
And it makes it more difficult to have a conversation like this: "I have time blindness. Let's talk about what you'll do if I don't make it on time, and what the consequences will be. I don't want to make you wait." - which both helps avoid lateness and often allows for a solution other than "everyone will be angrily waiting for the late person".
Yes they are. Your own time is always more important than the same amount (NB!) of anyone else's, to you. (How the F could it not be?)
The thing is, the chronic latecomers seem to think[1] that the sum of all the other people's time (NB: That's a lot more time) is less important in the grand scheme of things than their own.
Whether it's thought-out or not, who cares, when it has the same effect as utter non-caring arrogance?
___
[1]: Or rather, they probably don't think about it at all, but that just goes to further should they don't value other people's time -- other people, I guess -- basically at all. If someone consistently behaves like an asshole, which is what chronic latecomers are doing, the most likely reason is that they're an asshole.
tl;dr: it's as much on the attendees who _are_ present to move things along. Take some initiative!
This article just comes across as completely ignorant of what might be going on in another person's life. Many comments here also lean towards this being about managers who demand things don't start until they're present.
This is just wrong.
In reality, any group of sufficiently smart and empowered people who have managed to get themselves together in a room should be organised enough to start without waiting on a particular individual.
If that individual then acts out because they missed some stuff, yep they're a dick. But they're not a dick just for being late or even being consistently late.
Readit News
All meetings should end at a time ending in 0 minutes. Eg. 10:30 is a valid end time.
Everyone needs some time for composure (travel time, bathroom, drinks etc.), sometimes you just have to run the last meeting a few mins over. By starting on the *5 and setting that as the start time on the calendar you give yourself this time. This is especially true at senior levels where you have strings of back to back meetings. The expectation is then set. You show up at 10:35 precisely and no one’s waiting 5 mins.
Your idea to start later is great.
Deleted Comment
Why they don’t just make it explicit I will never understand.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Berkeley-Time-10-minu...
It worked out nicely when I had therapy just off-campus at 11 AM (11-11:50, because that's how therapists do it) immediately before a class that started at noon (12:10 - 1:00), although sometimes I was emotionally a wreck while teaching...
This is an excellent example of an ADHD accommodation that costs nothing to implement, and is absolutely welcomed by neurotypical people too.
Same goes for having meeting-free days, and a culture that teaches people to be mindful of interruptions[1].
Unsurprisingly, it's something companies like Meta have (software engineering tends to attract ADHD folks because Hyperfocus[2] is a trait of something ironically called attention deficit, and coding marathons are a great example of that in action).
Programmers talk about Flow all the time, but that's what Hyperfocus can easily mistaken for[3]. If you find it difficult to get started[4], but once you get going, you forget the world exists and find it difficult to switch out of whatever you're doing[5], and stopping feels painful.. yeah, that's hyperfocus.
Which, along with being late all the time[6], is an ADHD trait. ADHD is surely the worst-named affliction.[7]
Found out the hard way at the age of 34. Sharing my experience so that y'all don't have to keep on living your life on hard mode, and driving your Lamborghini brain on unplowed fields when it was built for a different purpose.
If you find yourself relating to the article we're discussing (Late Again), you'll likely find the links below interesting.
[1] https://romankogan.net/adhd#Hyperfocus
[2] https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Interruptions
[3] https://www.additudemag.com/flow-state-vs-hyperfocus-adhd/
[4] romankogan.net/adhd#Getting%20Started
[5] https://romankogan.net/adhd/#ADHD%20Switches
[6] https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Being%20Late
[7] https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Awfully%20Described%20Human%20D...
Say on person or team takes that to always have meetings end at :25 or :55, another always ends at :35 or :05, and another team say :15 and :45 for any meeting end times.
In my experience meetings seem to fall into common durations, always in intervals of 15 minutes but most common at 30 minutes or an hour.
I'd go even more strict on times and say meetings must start at :00 or :30, and always end by :25 or :55. That enforces a 5 minute window and standardizes start times without preventing longer meetings that need to run for 90 minutes or longer.
When a meeting starts at 10:30, and some people come at 10:30, there is often a social pressure to show some courtesy and wait for the rest. But who shows the courtesy for people who actually came on time? These people follow the rules and are being _punished_ for it.
People should just start the meeting when it's scheduled. Start it at 10:30. If there's nobody on the meeting, I would start it regardless, how stupid this might sound.
Those same managers will take ages to respond to emails because they are "so busy", but yet they insist on inserting themselves into all decision-making, because obviously nobody else can make a decision without their approval.
If everyone showed up on time, the pre-meeting chit chat would have no natural boundary and could extend indefinitely.
They also take the pressure off of the people who care since they know there is leeway because at least you'll never be as late as "that person".
It's totally natural and beneficial and a treasured part of corporate culture.
Perspective from someone who identifies as a tidsoptimist, Swedish for “time optimist”:
> I'm sure it seems ridiculous to people who are always on time. They may be puzzled as to why such a name was coined for such a circumstance and why anyone would spend time and effort contemplating it. But such people exist, such as myself.
> I am not someone who enjoys being late everywhere. In reality, I dislike keeping people waiting, but honestly, my punctual arrivals don't happen very often.
https://wordsoftheworlds.substack.com/p/tidsoptimist-a-time-...
I also wondered all those things, and loved the word tidsoptimist.
Then I got diagnosed with ADHD as an adult at age 34, and it all clicked.
"Tidsoptimism" is an ADHD trait:
https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Being%20Late
A part of it is what's literally called Time Blindness:
https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Time%20Perception
https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Time%20Blindness
The article we're discussing (as well the one you linked, and the one written by Tim Urban on the same issue[1], and the words you wrote) is a universal ADHD experience.
Figuring out that this is how my brain works helped immensely. Turns out, there is no need to make up new terms (tidsoptimist, "chronically late person", etc). The words have already been invented. And many people have already worked out solutions, mitigation strategies (...and meds[2]).
I hope that my links above will help some people learn something about themselves, and for others - to understand their friends and colleagues better.
And for hell's sake, let's take the moral charge out of lateness itself. I'm not saying that it should be acceptable: to the extent that someone being late affects other people, there may (and should be!) consequences.
But being late has a stigma even when it doesn't affect anyone else.
And it makes it more difficult to have a conversation like this: "I have time blindness. Let's talk about what you'll do if I don't make it on time, and what the consequences will be. I don't want to make you wait." - which both helps avoid lateness and often allows for a solution other than "everyone will be angrily waiting for the late person".
[1] https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/07/why-im-always-late.html
[2] https://romankogan.net/adhd#Medication
Caring this much means that your 3 minutes are not as important as you think they are.
The thing is, the chronic latecomers seem to think[1] that the sum of all the other people's time (NB: That's a lot more time) is less important in the grand scheme of things than their own.
Whether it's thought-out or not, who cares, when it has the same effect as utter non-caring arrogance?
___
[1]: Or rather, they probably don't think about it at all, but that just goes to further should they don't value other people's time -- other people, I guess -- basically at all. If someone consistently behaves like an asshole, which is what chronic latecomers are doing, the most likely reason is that they're an asshole.
This article just comes across as completely ignorant of what might be going on in another person's life. Many comments here also lean towards this being about managers who demand things don't start until they're present.
This is just wrong.
In reality, any group of sufficiently smart and empowered people who have managed to get themselves together in a room should be organised enough to start without waiting on a particular individual.
If that individual then acts out because they missed some stuff, yep they're a dick. But they're not a dick just for being late or even being consistently late.