Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Effectiveness of starting meetings at :05

  • Several commenters report that “start at :05” is already standard in some large companies and can create accepted short breaks between meetings, especially for managers with stacked calendars.
  • Others say it quickly loses its benefit: people just shift to arriving at :07–:10, and meetings still overrun, so the buffer disappears.
  • One data-driven internal experiment found that after a few weeks, meetings in the “start late” org began ending late, while control orgs did not, leading them to revert.

Culture and leadership vs. clock games

  • Many view the root problem as organizational culture and weak time discipline, not scheduling mechanics.
  • Reframing as a “leadership hack” is criticized as a fad or “technical solution to a managerial problem.”
  • Several argue that the only reliable fix is: start exactly on time, end on time, don’t wait for late arrivals, and let latecomers catch up via notes or recordings.

Alternatives proposed

  • Ending meetings 5–10 minutes early (25/50-minute defaults) is widely preferred to starting late, especially for external-facing calendars aligned to the hour/half hour.
  • Some teams formalize: start at :02, end at :50 or :55, with mandatory short breaks every hour for long meetings.
  • University-style norms (academic quarter, MIT/Oxford time) are cited as precedents for institutionalized buffers.

Back-to-back meetings and breaks

  • Commenters emphasize basic logistics: restroom, coffee, context switch, walking between rooms; auto-ejecting or hard stops are suggested.
  • Some refuse true back-to-back meetings or require 30-minute gaps; others intentionally batch meetings to free large focus blocks.

Meeting quality and necessity

  • Recurrent theme: most meetings are too long, lack agendas, have too many attendees, and “could have been an email.”
  • Heuristics for declining: no agenda or clear outcome, no personal value added/received, higher-priority work in conflict, no notes shared afterward.

Social and remote dynamics

  • For remote workers, pre-meeting small talk can be one of few social outlets and may help regulate the “vibe.”
  • Others strongly dislike forced chit-chat and deliberately join a few minutes late to skip it.