Start your meetings at 5 minutes past • Hacker News Board

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#91

Post by cagz » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:18 AM UTC

Good idea, after trying it a number of times, it has some downsides. Most calendar applications cannot clearly display 5 minutes past, and the meeting appears to start on the hour visually. One of the attendees ends up dialling in at the hour, and then everyone gets a notification that the meeting has started.

Half of the people who get the notification click "join" without checking. This ends up with a half-populated meeting room. The issue becomes obvious, and somebody says, "Let's dial back in 5 mins", and drops off. Half of the people like the idea and drop off, while the rest decide to stay and chat.

Meanwhile, some of those who dropped off see this as a great opportunity to grab a brew. That inadvertently triggers some water-cooler, kettle-corner chats, and they end up running late for the 5-past. The rest usually get engaged in something else to make use of 5 minutes, and miss 5-past since no new notifications are issued due to the people already chatting in the meeting :)

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#92

Post by matwood » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:38 AM UTC

SkyPuncher wrote: post #15

recursive wrote: post #10

> there is social pressure not to allow meetings to run much past the top of the hour. I've never seen this pressure. > meetings rarely started on the dot anyway before this change. It's like I live in an entirely different world. Start meetings when they say they're going to start. People will learn to show up quickly. I think that works better than trying to psychologically game people into cooperation. That just s…

> People will learn to show up quickly. My bosses (leadership) are in meetings literally all day long. Them showing up 5 minutes late to an internal meeting has nothing to do with them "learning". It's entirely about priorities. Teaching them to "show up on time" does nothing and only hurts me for being obtuse with them.

Unfortunately this is the reality. If I’m on with a big external partner/client and they need to finish their thought I’m going to be late to an internal meeting. If it’s too late I will try to slack and say go ahead.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#93

Post by ozim » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:41 AM UTC

We got bunch of internal meetings starting at quarter past instead of full hour and mostly we can get it finished in 45mins.

Gives people room to breathe for those who are back to back scheduled full day. When they have calls with customers or other departments they are usually late anyway and don’t have time to go to toilet in between because as always other meetings run past time.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#94

Post by matwood » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:41 AM UTC

daniel_j wrote: post #26

I've found myself watching and waiting for at least 3 people to join a meeting before I connect to avoid the inevitable minutes of greetings and unrelated discussion that always happens. Our meetings always start 5-10 minutes _past_ the scheduled time.

It’s been shown before that a couple minutes of pleasantries helps the meeting. I’m guessing it helps regulate everyone on a similar vibe. A lot like saying hello to someone and maybe how are you doing before launching into any requests.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#95

Post by mrweasel » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:47 AM UTC

VariousPrograms wrote: post #39

Alternatively, join my meetings on time. You click End Call, then Join. It takes 3 seconds. You get Outlook reminders 15 minutes in advance. Webex/Teams notifications 5 minutes in advance. I’m sure you can make your watch vibrate or something. People at my office join every meeting 5 minutes late because no one expects meetings to start on time anymore. So I guess we’re following this advice in all but the nominally…

I'm absolutely baffled by colleague who somehow manage to be five minutes late to an online meeting while working from home. Because you're right, you get a reminder 10 - 15 minutes in advance, you just need to click the join meeting button, you're already at the computer. We have, for remote meetings, a five minute buffer at the start of every meeting, for people to "settle in" makes no sense, just start the meeting.

In general a lot of people just aren't being serious about meetings, which I guess is also why many hate them. So key indicators of a bad meeting is: runs more than 60 minutes, no meeting plan, documents or talking points provided in advance, more than five people (unless the meeting is more of a briefing).

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#96

Post by booleandilemma » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:58 AM UTC

I suggested this to management at my company and they shot it down almost immediately. Narrow-minded middle manager types generally aren't receptive to this kind of out-of-the-box thinking unless they think it's an idea they've come up with.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#97

Post by atoav » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:17 AM UTC

cagz wrote: post #91

Good idea, after trying it a number of times, it has some downsides. Most calendar applications cannot clearly display 5 minutes past, and the meeting appears to start on the hour visually. One of the attendees ends up dialling in at the hour, and then everyone gets a notification that the meeting has started. Half of the people who get the notification click "join" without checking. This ends up with a half-populate…

Well the trick is to schedule the meeting at hh:mm, but start it at hh: mm+5 and then just make this a policy organization-wide.

In academia (mostly European) this has been a concept for centuries to allow changes of classes to happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_quarter_%28class_timi...

So you can have a c.t. event (cum tempore = with time) or a s.t. event (sine tempore = without time).

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#98

Post by 7bit » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:23 AM UTC

JustinAiken wrote: post #82

RedShift1 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are ICs?

Individual Contributors - not managmenet

That almost sounds insulting. Like management is the only party with vision, drive and a goal and everybody else is just there to help. When often management just manages and true innovation really comes from people of all positions.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#99

Post by bialpio » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:23 AM UTC

block_dagger wrote: post #86

How about just be punctual, respecting the time others have agreed to meet with you? Simpler solution than what this article suggests. People will abuse that system just the same anyway.

How do you plan to show up on time if one of your meetings ends at 2pm, the next one starts at 2pm, the meeting rooms are 3 floors apart, and you need to go to the restroom because you've been in meetings since lunch and need to pee? You're going to clone yourself?

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#100

Post by rgoulter » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:26 AM UTC

7bit wrote: post #98

JustinAiken wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual Contributors - not managmenet

That almost sounds insulting. Like management is the only party with vision, drive and a goal and everybody else is just there to help. When often management just manages and true innovation really comes from people of all positions.

Eh.

It's a relatively common term. I wouldn't read too much into it.

I'd rather not have by ass kissed with a term like "everyday innovator". -- "Individual Contributor" is fine.