Fifteen Minutes Early in a Back-to-Back World

I inherited my sense of time from my father.

If you're not fifteen minutes early, you're late.

That's pretty much how I've operated my whole life. Show up early. Be ready. Respect people's time.

Then digital meetings came along, and somehow we decided a meeting ending at 11:00 and another starting at 11:00 was a perfectly reasonable plan.

My calendar has apparently never met my father.

When those meetings stack up, my anxiety goes through the roof. I'm trying to finish one conversation properly while worrying about being late to the next.

And here's the funny part... if you're a minute late to my meeting, I'm not angry. I understand. Things run over. People need a minute.

I just have a harder time giving myself that same grace.

So I've been working on two things.

First, using my mornings to prepare for the meetings throughout the day. Am I prepped? Am I ready? Do I have what I need to jump into each conversation?

That way, I'm not relying on those nonexistent fifteen minutes between calls to get myself organized.

Second, accepting that being a minute late sometimes happens. I still want to be on time. That hasn't changed. But I'm trying to stop treating every small delay like I've personally failed.

It also makes me wonder how much of this we could fix when we schedule the meetings.

Could we book 25 minutes instead of 30? Fifty instead of an hour? Could ending on time get the same attention as starting on time?

And if we're running behind, could a quick heads-up take some of the uncertainty out of it for the person waiting?

We took the travel time out of meetings. We still need time to wrap up, switch gears, and get ready for the next conversation. Maybe even get a glass of water.

I still hear that fifteen-minute rule in my head. I'm just trying to figure out how it fits into a day where the next meeting is always one click away.

How do you handle this? Do you build in a buffer, keep a strict stop time, or give yourself a little grace?

And are you better at giving that grace to everyone else than you are to yourself?