Ask HN: Best time of the day to schedule meeting?

2 points·waqasaday··4 comments

Hi guys, wondering in your experience what is best time of the day to schedule internal and external meetings.

Depends on the purpose. Research suggests that people are both less persuadable and poorer decision makers when hungry. But post-prandial coma isn't great for meetings that require thought and focus either. Engineers often prefer their afternoons uninterrupted by meetings.

I try to schedule thoughtful meetings and meetings with engineers for right after standup so people aren't yet starving for lunch and aren't breaking flow. Right after lunch is good for quick status updates or outgoing sales calls. Meetings with the sales team or CEO go wherever there's a free half hour slot on their calendars.

And my boss will talk your ear off on useless tangents, given the chance, so I try to schedule meetings with him for first thing in the morning if I need to make sure we don't run out of time; just before he has a meeting, if I'm having a busy day; or at the end of the day if I know he has to be somewhere and I don't.

Internal meetings: Early in the day to get them out of the way. Clears the mind and stops the nagging “Don’t forget the meeting!” thoughts. If they are regular, have them at the same time so people can settle into a routine.

External meetings: When it is convenient for the external party. Travel time is 3 hours? A meeting at 8 a.m. would suck because the party has to get ready at 4 a.m.

Mid morningish sometime before lunch, people are awake at this point and focused on the daily tasks.

Well it depends heavily on if you are dealing with multiple time zones or not.

For east coat to west coast, 1pm est is 10am pst, and works pretty well

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