There’s a new style of meetings that’s been cropping up in the chic offices across the world and that is the 30 minute meeting. You may have heard about people incrementing their time into 30, 40 or 45 minute time slots to ensure they are getting the most out of each and every day and now incrementing meetings in short and effective timeframes is making waves in the productivity of office meetings.

Gone are the days of hour long or more meetings that go round and round in circles, in an era where we’re becoming increasingly time poor, the need for more productive solutions has never been needed more.

Instead of multitasking several projects at once, research is showing the efficiency of incrementing your time and focusing on only one task at hand and this translates to the timeframe and structure of meetings as well. While the norm has always been allocating an hour, they can usually be resolved in a much shorter span of time.

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The benefits include:

  • Laser focus
  • Aware that the task needs to be accomplished within that designated time
  • The meeting is already designated the time of 30 minutes, so you’re hyper aware when it has gone over
  • Everyone is on time
  • People come prepared knowing that they have just 30 minutes to go through the meetings agenda

Love the sound of getting sh*t done? Read on below to find out how you can start implementing 30 minute meetings.

How To Create Your Successful 30 Minute Meeting

Brief attendees on the 30 minute meeting.

Prep those that haven’t had the 30 minute meeting yet on don’t know how it works, that any points must be added to the agenda and that the emphasis is to keep to on track. You can also come up with a paragraph intro and copy the steps below to new attendees that haven’t yet done this style of meeting before. That way it saves you time explaining and everyone clearly understands from the get go how the new structure of meetings will run.

Set an agenda.

Have a clear and set agenda to the topics that will be discussed. Be realistic and ensure everyone has had chance to add and view any points that need to be addressed.

Be fully present.

No phones, texting or drawing in your notebook. Even better pop phones in the centre of the table so there’s less distraction and encourage everyone to move the conversation along should it start going on different tangents.

Keep the number of attendees small.

The larger the meeting the harder it is rein others in and it increases the chance of wasting time. So keep these meetings to five attendees max, that way everyone has a chance to chip in and you won’t exceed the time slot.

Keeping time.

Set your alarm for 25 minutes and one for 30 minutes. That way it gives time to wrap things up in time for the 30 minute mark. You’ll likely find it a challenge in the beginning sticking to that timeframe but with a few go’s it’ll soon become very easy to accomplish.

Recap.

Use the final five minutes to have a quick recap and confirm the action list, who it’s being carried out by and any other details that need final clarification.

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