I recently moved to another country for work purposes. I was met with a different approach regarding time management. In this post I will explain the differences between what I was raised with and what I found after moving.
I grew up in a country where an agreed upon hour isn’t an exact point in time but more of a rough estimate. When two people say they will meet, for example, at 11:00, what is really meant is that they will meet at around 11:00. There is this unspoken grace period in which any of them are allowed to arrive, effectively late, without expecting any consequence. This is true for both formal and informal meetings and the length of the grace period is completely subjective and different for each person. It depends on the person, their relationship, with whom they are meeting and the meeting’s purpose. In my experience it can range from around ten minutes to a couple of hours.
It is hard to explain how someone works out how late they can arrive, everything works at the border between conscious and subconscious levels. When I look at the clock and roughly see what time it is, I get a feeling that makes me act accordingly. In some situations it feels like I should hurry up, in others feels like I can relax a bit and take my time to get there. But there rarely is a precise time calculation to determine exactly how many minutes I have left, or at what exact time I expect to be there. It is all by feel.
You might think I just have a lack of respect for everyone else, but that is not true, this is a cultural issue that is baked into society. As a real life example: in both universities I studied in, classes are scheduled to start at the hour, but there is an official tolerance period of ten minutes in one case and fifteen minutes in the other. This means that for a class with the standard duration of one hour, both students and professors are expected to miss up to a quarter of it. And it does in fact happen like this, most people arrive during the tolerance period, professors included, sometimes even just after. During this time, whoever has already arrived casually waits for everyone else, including the professors themselves who, if arrived earlier, stand by until enough students gather or they consider it is late enough and start the class. I myself would frequently arrive ten to fifteen minutes late, it was just natural.
In contrast, almost a year ago, I moved for work to a country where schedules are taken very seriously. Feels like a completely different world. First of all, work meetings have an end time, a concept that I didn’t know existed before. Meetings would just drag indefinitely until all topics were discussed. The way people think about and value time couldn’t be more different than where I grew up. Here, if I arrive 3 minutes late to a meeting, everyone else is already discussing the subject. If I invite a friend over for dinner at 20:00, I know the door bell will ring between 19:55 and 20:05. Before, inviting friends for dinner at 20:00 almost always implied eating not before 22:00 and having the last friend arriving after 22:30 and still joining us at the table to eat.
For informal contexts with friends and family, I do like the more relaxed way of thinking about time, it encourages flexibility and spontaneity and creates a nice chill, laid-back environment. However when it comes to work, there are so many advantages to be strict with time that I can’t see any reason to do it in any other way.
The most obvious advantage is that because meetings actually start at the expected hour, barely any time is wasted waiting around for other people to arrive. A few minutes every meeting, add up to a significant amount over the day/week.
Another important factor is that meetings also end on time. Often people just say bye and leave the meeting when the scheduled time is over. This was very surprising to me. I was so used to meetings always dragging over the stipulated time that it never occured to me there were better options. But now makes complete sense. Delays don’t accumulate throughout the day. Meetings ending on time allow for the following ones to start on time. Because no delays is the norm, managing my schedule is much easier. I have the confidence to plan my day without fearing that consecutive meetings might overlap.
The last benefit is that the meeting quality itself is much higher. Everyone involved knows and expects a fixed duration. So naturally, choosing what to spend time discussing becomes paramount. All the small details and side topics I used to see people get lost in, and consequently waste lots of time discussing, are now scheduled to discuss later and the focus comes back to the main topic. It is simple and efficient.
Working on this more strict environment has been really enjoyable. I love how efficient and predictable it is. I recommend trying it if you can.
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