6 ms·

If you want people to show up, data shows these are the best meeting times

94 points by Coko 3y ago

Coko 3y ago
New blog: Our team at Boomerang (https://boomerangapp.com/ https://boomerangapp.com/) analyzed 3.5 million proposed meeting times, putting the conventional wisdom about the best ways to schedule meetings to the test. The results are surprising, and busted some common myths about the best days and times to schedule meetings.
- TechBro8615 3y ago
  Interesting article, but very clickbaity. Here's the gist: > The best time to schedule a meeting is at 11am Monday morning... this time period has the least potential for conflicting with other meeting invites. > Avoid Wednesday and Thursday afternoons... the potential for conflicts is high. > Providing three meeting slots will suffice. [The article actually says seven, but only because it's content marketing for an app that lets you offer seven slots] > Time of invite matters. Adding a last-minute event to someone’s calendar probably won’t be well-received
- 88913527 3y ago
  I am unsurprised that earlier-in-week have more accept's than later-in-week. Weekends are a reset.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    And at least my experience is that Fridays have become a no meeting zone except in exceptional circumstances for a lot of people.
- yosamino 3y ago
  curious: that website mentions seven patents. I couldn't find it on the website, what patent are these ?
catamount2020 3y ago
> But the data shows that offering only one or two proposed times, even if they’re “good” ones, isn’t the best way to get a meeting scheduled. Definitely counterintuitive, the strength of the effect (2.4x acceptance rate for 3+ options) was eye opening.
thih9 3y ago
> The best time to schedule a meeting is at 11am Monday morning. People want to get meetings done and off the calendar, and this time period has the least potential for conflicting with other meeting invites. > Avoid Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. These are the most popular times to offer, meaning the potential for conflicts is high. In case anyone else was interested in just their answer to the title question.
- throwaway2016a 3y ago
  Thank you. The Wednesday one rings true. I always have an absurd number of conflicts on Wednesday.
- pimpampum 3y ago
  The title is not what it shows, that meetings are booked more on Monday 11am doesn't mean that people prefer or are more likely to show up. I guess they don't have data on attendance, only on booking.
  - abstrakraft 3y ago
    I was confused by that terminology at first, too, but it appears their product has an "offer" phase where the meeting organizer suggests multiple times, and a "book" phase in which the invitees accept the meeting and it's booked. Which doesn't necessarily mean that the meeting is attended, but it is a higher level of confirmation/buy-in from the invitees than what happens at my work (FANG) where organizers just throw meetings on everyone's calendar.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > The best time to schedule a meeting is at 11am Monday morning. I always curse people who schedule meetings first thing in the workday, last thing in the workday, or immediately adjacent to lunch time. If the meeting is an hour long, I'll avoid attending an 11am meeting if I possible can.
  - totallychinese 3y ago
fzeindl 3y ago
And if you want Meetings to be effective 1. Give out a short bullet point agenda for every meeting and 2. Take a break every 45 minutes.
- lnsru 3y ago
  45 minutes is already long meeting… From my experience longer than 30 minutes group meetings were never productive.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  > Take a break every 45 minutes. Perhaps things are different at the top of the tower, but in my experience if your meetings are regularly longer than an hour I'd say you're doing it wrong, or you're holding a workshop and not a meeting. Get the right people in the room, have a clear agenda and someone to lead the meeting if needed, and it's rare that more than an hour is needed. Often far less. At least in my world. My most productive meetings are around 15-20 minutes. If you're holding a workshop then I agree, take breaks.
  - Sai_ 3y ago
    Couldn’t agree more. In my former life as an employee managing teams and projects, I was infamous for having meeting scheduled for 30 minutes which ended in 20 with a plan of action as output. Long meetings are such a waste.
  - fzeindl 3y ago
    > Perhaps things are different at the top of the tower, but in my experience if your meetings are regularly longer than an hour I'd say you're doing it wrong, or you're holding a workshop and not a meeting. What do you mean by "top of the tower"? If you refer to my position as software architect, that has nothing to do with it. I worked at many companies and meeting length was ALWAYS a factor of the company culture not of my role. Personally I schedule meeting that take 45 minutes max. Most of the time i schedule 25 minutes. The 5 minutes are so people have a break in their Outlook calendar.
    - 3y ago
deepsun 3y ago
It's also culturally dependent -- I noticed US-based employees prefer to schedule a meeting for an idea and discuss/think/make decision on the meeting. EU and even more so Asia-based employees prefer to first discuss the idea on multiple 1:1s for a long time, to discuss / think / make decision with everyone, come up with some harmony before any formal meetings. And the meeting itself would serve only ceremonial needs -- to let the manager officially declare the idea live. That creates cultural clashes, when some people schedule a meeting to discuss something, but others decline or don't understand why are they here.
- 908B64B197 3y ago
  > EU and even more so Asia-based employees prefer to first discuss the idea on multiple 1:1s for a long time, to discuss / think / make decision with everyone, come up with some harmony before any formal meetings. And the meeting itself would serve only ceremonial needs -- to let the manager officially declare the idea live. This is so that the manager doesn't lose face in front of his subordinates. In the US, if the junior employee has a stroke of genius during the meeting and comes up with a better idea than the manager, then the manager just looks good for hiring that guy.
  - watwut 3y ago
    > This is so that the manager doesn't lose face in front of his subordinates. Not really, at least in my experience. Arguing against managers in Europe is common, sometimes I feel like more common then Americans expect. Americans tend to expect sort of submission - they interpret disagreement with boss as rudeness. "You can not say no to manager" is something Americans believe in and then they are shocked to come into meeting with Eastern European who just say "no" and acts as if it was normal. The one on ones are to large extend about forming opinions, testing both ideas and arguments in safe situations, rethinking everything again. You can say something wrong in them and then figure it out next day and change opinion. Instead of having one high stakes meeting where what you said is set in stone, you have to react instantly in well phrased arguments and don't have that time to think about others arguments.
- scyzoryk_xyz 3y ago
ResearchCode 3y ago
If you want people to show up, cancel the 70-80-90% of your meetings that are completely unnecessary.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
heyheyhey 3y ago
One thing I love is Outlook's function of starting meetings at :05 or :10: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/end-meetings-early-or-start-late-ebb4c4c9-6992-4ea7-9772-8b5883df8500 https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/end-meetings-earl... That quick break has made a huge difference.
andrewinardeer 3y ago
I schedule meetings at 830am on Mondays because I am a monster.
- InexSquirrel 3y ago
  I prefer this over 11am. I want a good 3 - 4 hour block to get focused work done. If I have a meeting at 11, and I need time to prep, it means I have 1.5 hours tops to get stuff done. As much as I have afternoon meetings, either first thing in the morning, or after lunch is best. Gives enough time to get stuck into things without disruptions.

94 points by Coko 3y ago

Coko 3y ago

New blog: Our team at Boomerang (https://boomerangapp.com/ https://boomerangapp.com/) analyzed 3.5 million proposed meeting times, putting the conventional wisdom about the best ways to schedule meetings to the test. The results are surprising, and busted some common myths about the best days and times to schedule meetings.

TechBro8615 3y ago
Interesting article, but very clickbaity. Here's the gist: > The best time to schedule a meeting is at 11am Monday morning... this time period has the least potential for conflicting with other meeting invites. > Avoid Wednesday and Thursday afternoons... the potential for conflicts is high. > Providing three meeting slots will suffice. [The article actually says seven, but only because it's content marketing for an app that lets you offer seven slots] > Time of invite matters. Adding a last-minute event to someone’s calendar probably won’t be well-received
88913527 3y ago
I am unsurprised that earlier-in-week have more accept's than later-in-week. Weekends are a reset.
- ghaff 3y ago
  And at least my experience is that Fridays have become a no meeting zone except in exceptional circumstances for a lot of people.
yosamino 3y ago
curious: that website mentions seven patents. I couldn't find it on the website, what patent are these ?

catamount2020 3y ago

> But the data shows that offering only one or two proposed times, even if they’re “good” ones, isn’t the best way to get a meeting scheduled. Definitely counterintuitive, the strength of the effect (2.4x acceptance rate for 3+ options) was eye opening.

thih9 3y ago

> The best time to schedule a meeting is at 11am Monday morning. People want to get meetings done and off the calendar, and this time period has the least potential for conflicting with other meeting invites. > Avoid Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. These are the most popular times to offer, meaning the potential for conflicts is high. In case anyone else was interested in just their answer to the title question.

throwaway2016a 3y ago
Thank you. The Wednesday one rings true. I always have an absurd number of conflicts on Wednesday.
pimpampum 3y ago
The title is not what it shows, that meetings are booked more on Monday 11am doesn't mean that people prefer or are more likely to show up. I guess they don't have data on attendance, only on booking.
- abstrakraft 3y ago
  I was confused by that terminology at first, too, but it appears their product has an "offer" phase where the meeting organizer suggests multiple times, and a "book" phase in which the invitees accept the meeting and it's booked. Which doesn't necessarily mean that the meeting is attended, but it is a higher level of confirmation/buy-in from the invitees than what happens at my work (FANG) where organizers just throw meetings on everyone's calendar.
JohnFen 3y ago
> The best time to schedule a meeting is at 11am Monday morning. I always curse people who schedule meetings first thing in the workday, last thing in the workday, or immediately adjacent to lunch time. If the meeting is an hour long, I'll avoid attending an 11am meeting if I possible can.
- totallychinese 3y ago

fzeindl 3y ago

And if you want Meetings to be effective 1. Give out a short bullet point agenda for every meeting and 2. Take a break every 45 minutes.

lnsru 3y ago
45 minutes is already long meeting… From my experience longer than 30 minutes group meetings were never productive.
magicalhippo 3y ago
> Take a break every 45 minutes. Perhaps things are different at the top of the tower, but in my experience if your meetings are regularly longer than an hour I'd say you're doing it wrong, or you're holding a workshop and not a meeting. Get the right people in the room, have a clear agenda and someone to lead the meeting if needed, and it's rare that more than an hour is needed. Often far less. At least in my world. My most productive meetings are around 15-20 minutes. If you're holding a workshop then I agree, take breaks.
- Sai_ 3y ago
  Couldn’t agree more. In my former life as an employee managing teams and projects, I was infamous for having meeting scheduled for 30 minutes which ended in 20 with a plan of action as output. Long meetings are such a waste.
- fzeindl 3y ago
  > Perhaps things are different at the top of the tower, but in my experience if your meetings are regularly longer than an hour I'd say you're doing it wrong, or you're holding a workshop and not a meeting. What do you mean by "top of the tower"? If you refer to my position as software architect, that has nothing to do with it. I worked at many companies and meeting length was ALWAYS a factor of the company culture not of my role. Personally I schedule meeting that take 45 minutes max. Most of the time i schedule 25 minutes. The 5 minutes are so people have a break in their Outlook calendar.
  - 3y ago

deepsun 3y ago

It's also culturally dependent -- I noticed US-based employees prefer to schedule a meeting for an idea and discuss/think/make decision on the meeting. EU and even more so Asia-based employees prefer to first discuss the idea on multiple 1:1s for a long time, to discuss / think / make decision with everyone, come up with some harmony before any formal meetings. And the meeting itself would serve only ceremonial needs -- to let the manager officially declare the idea live. That creates cultural clashes, when some people schedule a meeting to discuss something, but others decline or don't understand why are they here.

908B64B197 3y ago
> EU and even more so Asia-based employees prefer to first discuss the idea on multiple 1:1s for a long time, to discuss / think / make decision with everyone, come up with some harmony before any formal meetings. And the meeting itself would serve only ceremonial needs -- to let the manager officially declare the idea live. This is so that the manager doesn't lose face in front of his subordinates. In the US, if the junior employee has a stroke of genius during the meeting and comes up with a better idea than the manager, then the manager just looks good for hiring that guy.
- watwut 3y ago
  > This is so that the manager doesn't lose face in front of his subordinates. Not really, at least in my experience. Arguing against managers in Europe is common, sometimes I feel like more common then Americans expect. Americans tend to expect sort of submission - they interpret disagreement with boss as rudeness. "You can not say no to manager" is something Americans believe in and then they are shocked to come into meeting with Eastern European who just say "no" and acts as if it was normal. The one on ones are to large extend about forming opinions, testing both ideas and arguments in safe situations, rethinking everything again. You can say something wrong in them and then figure it out next day and change opinion. Instead of having one high stakes meeting where what you said is set in stone, you have to react instantly in well phrased arguments and don't have that time to think about others arguments.
scyzoryk_xyz 3y ago

ResearchCode 3y ago

If you want people to show up, cancel the 70-80-90% of your meetings that are completely unnecessary.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

heyheyhey 3y ago

One thing I love is Outlook's function of starting meetings at :05 or :10: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/end-meetings-early-or-start-late-ebb4c4c9-6992-4ea7-9772-8b5883df8500 https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/end-meetings-earl... That quick break has made a huge difference.

andrewinardeer 3y ago

I schedule meetings at 830am on Mondays because I am a monster.

InexSquirrel 3y ago
I prefer this over 11am. I want a good 3 - 4 hour block to get focused work done. If I have a meeting at 11, and I need time to prep, it means I have 1.5 hours tops to get stuff done. As much as I have afternoon meetings, either first thing in the morning, or after lunch is best. Gives enough time to get stuck into things without disruptions.