A reality of corporate life is meetings. We spend an enormous amount of time in them, and one pattern I see over and over again is a relentless, almost careless habit: scheduling meetings back to back. Look at any corporate calendar and you will see it: meetings stacked wall to wall with zero margin between them. No consideration for the cognitive toll of context switching. No time to actually do work. Just meetings, all day.
I have been doing something about this for several years now, and it is one of those things people don't fully appreciate until they experience it firsthand. Once they see it, they can't unsee it.
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The Framework: Schedule at Awkward Times
Instead of defaulting to the top or bottom of the hour, I schedule meetings at unconventional times. For example, rather than booking 11:30–12:00, I might set the meeting for 11:40–12:20.
Why would anyone do this? Several reasons.
1. Buffer Against Overruns
When people have adjacent meetings, the preceding one frequently runs long. That makes your attendees late before your meeting even begins. An offset start time creates a natural buffer for this very real risk.
2. Respect for Human Needs
We are humans with biological needs. Refilling coffee, grabbing a bite, using the restroom, responding to a personal message: these things require time. Back-to-back scheduling pretends those needs don't exist.
3. The Context-Switching Tax
No one seems to account for the actual cognitive cost of jumping from one topic, one group of people, and one set of decisions to an entirely different one. That mental toggle has a price, and it compounds across a full day of meetings.
Scheduling at awkward times is a favor to your attendees. It gives them room to breathe.
Start on Time. End on Time. Every Time.
I can't control how other people run their meetings, but I control mine. There is no such thing as "giving it a couple more minutes for people to trickle in." If I said the meeting starts at 11:40, then it starts at 11:40. The people who showed up on time deserve that respect. Their time is valuable, and whatever delayed the others is beyond anyone's control.
Especially in meetings with several attendees, this discipline matters. You start on time. You end on time. Period.
The Surprising Side Effect
I don't have hard metrics, but I can say with very high confidence that roughly 98% of attendees to the meetings I host show up on time. Often, they arrive early. The awkward time on the calendar catches their attention. They notice it. They respect it. They don't want to be the person who missed the mark.
This completely flips the typical meeting culture on its head, and it does so in a meaningful way.
The Playbook
If you host meetings, lead with this framework:
- Schedule at unconventional times. Not on the hour. Not on the half-hour. Do something different.
- Start and end on time. Make punctuality your professional brand.
- Run an effective meeting. Have clear objectives and defined outcomes.
- Stay the course. Consistency builds reputation. People will come to respect your reliability.
Where I Learned This
This approach was shaped by close to thirty years working in commercial aviation, an industry where people are literally buying time. Airlines can't always run on schedule, but the principle holds: control for the controllables.
The same applies to your calendar. You may not be able to fix everyone else's meeting habits, but you can set the standard in the meetings you own. And when you do, people notice.