Start your meetings at 5 minutes past • Hacker News Board

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#111

Post by bialpio » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:19 AM UTC

matusp wrote: post #102

bialpio wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

At the start of the first meeting, you annouce that you need to leave at 1:50 and ask the meeting to respect that.

I'd rather have a 5-minute break built-in for everyone by starting 5-past and actually enforce meeting end-times. Behaviors would change if people knew they had 25 or 55 minutes for a meeting and that folks would just leave when the time is up.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#112

Post by steve1977 » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:23 AM UTC

tanvach wrote: post #75

During the pandemic, we had a natural experiment at my previous company. Our org had started an org wise auto ‘meeting starts 5 minute past’ while others had the traditional meetings start on the hour. Also conveniently, we also had the calendar data for internal meetings, internal VC software (not zoom) db that logs the participants when they join and leave meetings and employee function db. I was serendipitously th…

In my experience, the best approach is simply to have as few meetings as possible.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#113

Post by michaelt » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:29 AM UTC

matusp wrote: post #102

bialpio wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

At the start of the first meeting, you annouce that you need to leave at 1:50 and ask the meeting to respect that.

The thing is, a lot of meetings start with presenting evidence of a problem, then have some discussion of the problem and potential options, and only in the last 10 minutes do the proposed actions turn into firm decisions with names against them.

And often if I'm in a meeting it's because I think the problem is important and I want it solved. Getting permission for my team to fix things, or getting other teams to agree to fix things, is the point.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#114

Post by IndrekR » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:34 AM UTC

A similar concept has been used for university lectures to start 15 minutes after the full hour. This was due to nobody having watches and everything being synced to the church bells ringing at the full hour. Then you had 15 minutes to get to the next lecture (in another building). Starting time was given as ct (cum tempore, with time) or st (sine tempore, without time). Usually only st was marked as everybody assumed the 15 minutes delay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_quarter_(class_timing...

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#115

Post by wiseowise » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:45 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.

This. Can’t stand those fake “how’s your day?” and fake socializing bullshit.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#116

Post by wiseowise » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:49 AM UTC

sys_64738 wrote: post #51

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.

"How was your weekend?" I really don't care.

Seriously.

> How was your weekend?

Fine, just like literally thousands of previous weekends before this one. And now I’m going to ask you the same and then zone out for 5 minutes because I literally couldn’t care less.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#117

Post by bjackman » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:50 AM UTC

tanvach wrote: post #75

During the pandemic, we had a natural experiment at my previous company. Our org had started an org wise auto ‘meeting starts 5 minute past’ while others had the traditional meetings start on the hour. Also conveniently, we also had the calendar data for internal meetings, internal VC software (not zoom) db that logs the participants when they join and leave meetings and employee function db. I was serendipitously th…

> The biggest predictor for people who prefer starting late is how crowded their schedules are. Managers tend to have very crowded schedules which means they want a break between meetings, while ICs prefer not having to waste time waiting.

I have had a few senior managers (at Google) who ask for all the meetings _they_ attend to start 5 minutes late.

This seems 100% reasonable to me. No need for it to be an org policy. Just a affordance for the people who spend 95% of their working hours in meetings.

I've also had several senior managers at Google who _don't_ do this, but are 5 minutes late for every meeting anyway. This alternative is pretty annoying!

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#118

Post by wiseowise » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:55 AM UTC

ergocoder wrote: post #79

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.

This is borderline anti-social and a bit past introvert haha

> introvert

This has nothing to do with being introverted.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#119

Post by hartator » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:56 AM UTC

Seems a mismanagement issue - making sure everyone is on time - transformed into a calendar scheme.

If you can’t tell people to stop being late, you are not doing your job as a manager.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#120

Post by wiseowise » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:56 AM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #95

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…

> 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).

So 99% of my meetings?