In 2016 a Cook County judge ruled that the Chicago City Council had violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act by not allowing public comment at full Council meetings. In June 2017 the city’s law department proposed a rule that “Adds a 30 minute overall time limit for public comment at City Council, with three minutes per speaker.”
Five Minutes per Member
At hearings of committees of the House of Representatives, “House rules guarantee each committee member who desires it an opportunity to question each witness for five minutes.” Witnesses are asked to “limit their oral testimony to brief summaries.”
The Vocabulary of the Clock
Let’s be mindful of time. — We have a fixed amount of time, so please keep it short.
In the interest of time… — Because time is limited, I will skip this or shorten it.
We’re at time. — The scheduled end has arrived, and the meeting should end now.
I know we’re over, but… — An apology from someone who keeps talking after the end time.
Long story short… — I will skip the details and give the point.
Top of the hour. — The full hour, when most meetings start. Bottom of the hour is the half hour.
The Timebox
Scrum is a framework for teamwork, first used for software, created by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. Its rulebook, the Scrum Guide, gives every meeting a fixed maximum length, called a timebox. “The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute event for the Developers of the Scrum Team.”
For a one-month work cycle, the planning meeting is limited to eight hours, the review to four and the retrospective to three.
Two Hours and Two Minutes
On November 19, 1863, the orator Edward Everett spoke for two hours at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg. Abraham Lincoln spoke after him for about two minutes.
The next day Everett wrote to Lincoln: “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”
The Timer
On October 22, 1924, about two dozen men “met in the basement of the Santa Ana YMCA” in California to hear Ralph C. Smedley explain a new kind of club. It became Toastmasters International.
Toastmasters meetings have a Timer. For a standard speech, a green signal is shown at five minutes, yellow at six and red at seven. The club magazine tells members: “As the timer, you play a fundamental role in keeping club meetings and members’ speeches on track.”
Your Brain Needs Breaks
In March 2021, Microsoft’s Human Factors Lab had 14 people wear EEG caps during video meetings. On one day they had four half-hour meetings back to back. On another day, the same four meetings were separated by 10-minute breaks, which the participants spent meditating.
Without breaks, brain activity linked to stress built up over the two hours. With breaks, it stayed steady. Microsoft published the results on April 20, 2021: “The antidote to meeting fatigue is simple: taking short breaks.”
Speedy Meetings
Google Calendar has a setting called Speedy meetings. When it is on, “all your 30-minute meetings will end five minutes early, and longer meetings will end 10 minutes early.”
Microsoft Outlook has a similar setting, “Shorten duration for all events.” It lets users “end your meetings a few minutes early or start late.” Users set one value for meetings shorter than an hour and another for longer meetings. Microsoft says an organization can make this the default for all its employees.
Late to the Meeting
In 2013 a team led by Steven Rogelberg of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte published a study of lateness to meetings. They surveyed 195 employees in the southeastern United States about more than 300 meetings. Latecomers left others “feeling disrespected, upset, frustrated, and disappointed.” They also saw the late person as rude.
The participants said they themselves were late to meetings 5 percent of the time. The same study found that 37 percent of meetings started late.
The Vocabulary of Spending Time
Spend time. Save time. Waste time. Buy time. — Time is counted like money.
Time well spent. — The time produced something worth its cost.
On the clock. Off the clock. On company time. — Paid time and unpaid time.
I won’t take up much of your time. — A promise made before asking for something.
I’ll give you ten minutes back. — We will end the meeting early.
Thanks for your time. — A standard thank-you at the end of a call or a meeting.