Productivity

I’ve always wondered how many people out there have ever argued that meetings are the key to their personal and professional productivity. I suspect there are very few. Don’t get me wrong, I actually value face-to-face meetings more than anything else in the world when it comes to knowledge transfer and getting alignment on important issues. In fact, I find myself ignoring emails and phone calls much more in favor of meetings. But if I’m in meetings all day, when does the actual work get done?

Meetings are Unproductive

For most job roles, a meeting means sitting around a table with a group of people that are all waiting for their turn to speak. We’ve all been in that situation before (likely on both sides). Look around the room about 50 minutes into a 60 minute meeting and you’ll likely observe most people drifting off, checking email, or “pretending” to check email on their phone.

Research says you should ban laptops and sitting down, set a timer, and have silence breaks if you want meetings that accomplish anything ( FastCompany).

Put a goldfish in a small fish bowl and it will remain small. Put them in a large aquarium and that same fish will continue to grow until it fills the tank (or so I might have read once on the Internet). The same goes for meetings. If you schedule an hour, the meeting will last an hour. If you schedule a 30 minute meeting, you’ll be rushed, but it will finish at the half hour mark (or beyond). For this reason, we believe it’s important to keep meetings in a fishbowl … um, we mean, purposefully short.

The 20/50 Model for Meeting Scheduling

In 2008, when we started Project Unplug, we developed a model that would take/give back 10 minutes from every hour long meeting, which ensured people would have the time to digest the current topic before rushing to the next task or meeting. Rather than schedule an hour meeting, we would schedule (or just run it)them for 50. With our days filled with meetings, this simple trick ended up giving our team a free hour each day to recharge, refocus, and reengage themselves in the subjects being discussed in meetings.

If you were to apply this same approach and methodology for half hour meetings, your organization could achieve massive gains in productivity. People will be less resentful of long meeting time and will likely work better together to ensure all topics are given their best attention, knowing they won’t have to rush from one topic to the next trying to play catch up all day.

Giving your team free time to reflect allows them to come in with fresh minds for the next meeting, or at least a decompression period before they go back to their desk to complete the rest of their work.

Let’s Review the Math:

1. 15 Minute Stand-up Meeting = ok
2. 20 Minute Discussion, 10 Minutes Free = 0k
3. 50 Minute Meeting, 10 Minutes Free = ok
4. All Day Planning/Training Sessions Without Breaks = What’s wrong with you?

How Does This Apply to You:

Let’s have a little fun with numbers and see just how much time you can save by adopting the 20/50 rule in your meetings. You might be wondering, why are we crunching these numbers? Well, if there’s one thing we’ve all learned, it’s that time is our most precious resource. And if meetings are notorious for one thing, it’s stealing that precious time—time that could be better spent on creative projects, personal growth, or just taking a well-deserved break.

Imagine for a moment that you work a standard five-day week, with anywhere between four to five hours of meetings each day. That’s a lot of time sitting around a table, staring at screens, or waiting for your turn to speak. Now, what if we could give you some of that time back? That’s where the 20/50 rule comes in—a simple yet brilliant tweak to your meeting schedule that frees up ten minutes from every hour-long meeting and five minutes from every half-hour meeting. It might not sound like much at first, but let’s break it down.

If you’re just starting out in your career and plan to work until you’re 65, adopting this rule could save you somewhere between 573 and 717 days over your career. Yes, you read that right—days, not hours! That’s nearly two full years of time that you could spend traveling the world, mastering a new skill, or even writing that novel you’ve always dreamed about.

For those of you in the middle of your career, say around age 35, you’re looking at saving 400 to 500 days by the time you retire. That’s enough time to finally take those extended vacations, pursue a passion project, or invest in some serious personal development. Imagine the difference an extra year and a half could make in your life!

And if you’re 50 and starting to count down the years to retirement, the 20/50 rule could still gift you an extra 200 to 250 days. Think of it as your early retirement plan—a few more months to enjoy the things you love, mentor the next generation, or simply kick back and relax.

Why do these calculations? Because they remind us that even the smallest adjustments in how we manage our time can lead to massive gains in productivity and quality of life. Meetings may be necessary, but they don’t have to eat up all your time. By adopting the 20/50 rule, you’re reclaiming your schedule, one meeting at a time, and turning those minutes into days—days you can use to enrich your career, your relationships, and your life.

10 Other Simple Rules For Productive Meetings

If you’re not in control of the meeting calendar for meetings, here are a few other rules/guidelines we find useful in running productive gatherings:

No Spectators

If someone is in a meeting, they should serve a purpose, or have a purpose for being there. If you find yourself sitting in a room with a bunch of people listening to one or two people do most of the work, start charging them an admission fee and sell them a ticket.

Screens Down

While it’s preference to have zero digital devices in meetings, sometimes they do show up. Make it a habit and a rule that screens should be faced down, laptops closed, and all “alerts” turned off. This will ensure people are focused and not distracted. One person should be responsible for notes and they can have their screen up for that purpose.

Schedule Short Meetings (20/50)

Think to yourself: does this need to be a meeting? One meeting? Two? What do we really need to accomplish? Is this just a meeting to meet? If so, cancel.

Stand Up (people will get tired)

It must be my body showing it’s age, but at a certain point we all stop going to live concerts and don’t enjoy standing for more than 15 minutes without moving around. Let’s use this to our advantage and have more standing/walking meetings. Few people linger around during stand up meetings.

Focus Your Agenda

Have an agenda. Stick to it. If new topics come up, modify the agenda. This simple task will keep people focused on the topics and less focused on CNN alerts.

One Meeting Owner

Each meeting should have a moderator that keeps to the agenda. They should sit in a central location where they can capture each person’s attention with the glance of an eye. This holds the audience accountable.

Forward Thinking. Few Reviews.

Review meetings should be reserved for historical societies and post-vacation discussions. If your meeting is more focused on “review” of material most people already know, cancel it. Flip the model and have the meetings focused only on stuff you’re working towards or future ideas.

End Meeting When It’s Over

It’s probably rude to just get up with a meeting is over, but I find myself doing it all the time. We all know when the meeting “is over,” we sometimes linger to see if anything else will happen. If there’s anytime to ignore your FOMO impulses, it’s at the end of a meeting.

Give Back Time

When a meeting doesn’t need to take the allotted time, don’t fill it. Don’t hold people hostage, it’s considered time-stealing. People will never resent you for saying, “well, we accomplished what we needed, let’s end this meeting.”

End Lists When You Don’t Have 10 Items

No, seriously… we’re done.

Note:

I originally wrote this article back in 2017 and posted it on LinkedIn, only to rediscover it recently. Even after all these years, I still use the 20/50 model, and it’s been a game-changer for my productivity. By sticking to these principles, I’ve gained years of extra time—time that’s been spent on more meaningful work, creative thinking, and, yes, even a little bit of fun. Give it a try; you might just find yourself with more hours in the day than you ever thought possible.

Let’s walk through the calculations step by step manually to determine the time savings using the 20/50 rule.

Assumptions:

• Workweek: 5 days a week
• Weeks worked per year: 48 weeks (assuming 4 weeks off for vacation/holidays)
• Meetings per day: Between 4 to 5 hours

Time Saved per Meeting:

• For a 30-minute meeting: 10 minutes saved
• For a 60-minute meeting: 10 minutes saved

Time Saved per Day:

• Minimum Scenario (4 hours of meetings/day):
  • 8 half-hour meetings per day: $8\times 10\text{ minutes}$ = 80 minutes saved per day
• Maximum Scenario (5 hours of meetings/day):
  • 10 half-hour meetings per day: $10\times 10\text{ minutes}$ = 100 minutes saved per day

Time Saved per Year:

• Minimum Scenario:
  • Per week: $80\text{ minutes/day}\times 5\text{ days}$ = 400 minutes/week
  • Per year: $400\text{ minutes/week}\times 48\text{ weeks}$ = 19,200 minutes/year
• Maximum Scenario:
  • Per week: $100\text{ minutes/day}\times 5\text{ days}$ = 500 minutes/week
  • Per year: $500\times 48$ = 24,000 minutes/year

Conversion to Hours and Days:

• Minimum Scenario:
  • 19,200 minutes/year = 320 hours/year = 13.33 days/year
• Maximum Scenario:
  • 24,000 minutes/year = 400 hours/year = 16.67 days/year

Career-Length Savings:

1. New Worker (Age 22 to 65, 43 years of work):
   • Minimum: $320\text{ hours/year}\times 43\text{ years}=13,760\text{ hours}$
     • In Days: $13,760/24$ = 573 days
   • Maximum: $400\times 43=17,200\text{ hours}$
     • In Days: $17,200/24$ = 717 days
2. Mid-Career (Age 35 to 65, 30 years of work):
   • Minimum: $320\times 30=9,600\text{ hours}$
     • In Days: $9,600/24$ = 400 days
   • Maximum: $400\times 30=12,000\text{ hours}$
     • In Days: $12,000/24$ = 500 days
3. 50-Year-Old (Age 50 to 65, 15 years of work):
   • Minimum: $320\times 15=4,800\text{ hours}$
     • In Days: $4,800/24$ = 200 days
   • Maximum: $400\times 15=6,000\text{ hours}$
     • In Days: $6,000/24$ = 250 days