Add a one hour buffer between meetings.

Daniele Catalanotto
Mar 15, 2022
A revised draft of a Service Design Principle about how to avoid that meetings feel like hell.

Back to back meetings fill your list of todos. But you don’t have time to work on them. You don’t have time to digest the information from the meeting. It can feel pretty overwhelming!

To avoid this feeling, I use this little hack.

I add to every meeting 30 minutes to an hour buffer.

During this time, I can finish a few quick tasks that popped during the meeting. Or I can schedule the longer tasks for later. Finally, I can also save the important information from the meeting in a way that makes sure I’ll find it again in a few months.

There is also another little benefit. As my mind is already in the context of that project, doing some quick tasks is natural. I’m already in the right context. It doesn’t need a lot of energy to get up to speed.


Little side notes

  • This is the second draft for this Service Design Principle.
  • I've been able to reduce by 40% the length of this principle compared to its first draft.
  • Once adapted, even more, this principle will be part of the book "Service Design Principles 201-300"
  • As always comments and feedbacks to improve this principle are welcome
  • If you have a personal story that goes in that direction it would also help if you share it 
Like 1
Guy Martin
Mar 17, 2022
Outlook now allows you to automatically add buffer time at the end or (my preference) the start of meetings.  You can set it so when you schedule a one hour meeting, it actually schedules 50 minutes to start at 10 past the original start time or finish 10 minutes before the original end time.
Meetings tend to fill the time allotted, or go to a “major” time (on the hour, half past etc) so trying to end early can be difficult. Starting later means you help others who are still doing back-to-backs to get a bit of extra time to grab a drink or visit the bathroom.
I found you need to highlight the later start time in the invite though as people still try to join early. “NB: see later start time - enjoy the bonus comfort break!”
Daniele Catalanotto
Apr 2, 2022
Love your social hack that allows others to have a break between meetings by just scheduling them at "odd" hours like 15:10 instead of 15:00. Pretty smart!
Patrick Marcelissen
May 11, 2022
clear to read the message from this Principle
Daniele Catalanotto
Oct 25, 2022

The third draft of this Service Design Principle

Back-to-back meetings fill your list of todos. But you have no time to work on them or to digest the information you got. So, you feel overwhelmed!

To avoid this frustration, I add to every meeting 30 minutes to an hour buffer.

During this time, I finish a few quick tasks from the meeting and schedule the longer tasks for later. I have the time to save the critical information in a way that ensures I’ll find it again in a few months.

As my mind is already in the context of that project, finishing some quick tasks takes less effort (1). I don’t need much time to get up to speed as I’m already in the right context.

So let me ask you:

How can you help your team avoid back-to-back meetings?

Footnotes

(1) It seems that because of context switching, we lose about $450 billion annually globally in lost productivity. — Karina Parikh (2022). The Cost of Context Switching (and How To Avoid It). The Transcript by Loom. Available at https://extra.swissinnovation.academy/fa4Z accessed 25 October 2022.

Daniele’s notes

  • This is the third draft of this principle.
  • I’ve reduced the length of this principle by 7% compared to its previous draft.
  • I’ve added a footnote about the cost of context switching.
  • I’ve added a question at the end to help the reader turn this principle into action.