Core Hack #3: Wielding the Power of Timeboxing and the Parking Lot
You now have a meeting with a clear purpose and a well-structured 1-3-5 agenda. The final piece of the architectural puzzle is managing the flow of time within the meeting itself. The two most effective tools for this are timeboxing and the parking lot.
Timeboxing is the practice of allocating a fixed, maximum unit of time to a specific activity in advance. It’s a concept that powerfully counteracts Parkinson’s Law, the adage that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. If you give a discussion topic 30 minutes, it will take 30 minutes. If you give it 10, the conversation miraculously becomes more focused and concise.
Applying this to your agenda is simple but transformative. Next to each of your three topics, add a time allocation in parentheses. Your agenda now looks like this:
1. Review and approve the final Q3 budget allocation (15 mins).
2. Confirm marketing milestones and owner (10 mins).
3. Identify and address any remaining blockers (20 mins).
This simple act has a profound psychological effect on the attendees. It signals the expected depth of discussion for each item. A 15-minute slot for the budget implies a final review and approval, not a deep, line-by-line debate from scratch. It creates a shared sense of pace and urgency, encouraging participants to be concise and stay on topic.
Of course, even with the best intentions, discussions can go off-track. A brilliant but irrelevant idea is raised. A deep-seated debate on a minor point erupts. This is where timeboxing’s crucial partner comes in: the Parking Lot.
The Parking Lot is a designated space—a slide, a section of a digital whiteboard, or even just a note in a document—for important but off-topic ideas that arise during a meeting. When a discussion begins to stray from the timeboxed agenda item, the meeting facilitator can skillfully intervene.
Instead of shutting the person down, the facilitator says, “That’s a fantastic point, Sarah. It deserves a proper discussion, but it’s outside the scope of our current topic. I’m going to add it to our ‘Parking Lot’ to make sure we don’t lose it, and we can address it after this meeting.”
This technique is brilliant. It validates the speaker’s contribution, captures the valuable idea so it isn’t forgotten, and—most importantly—swiftly and respectfully brings the conversation back to the agenda. It honors both the person and the process, keeping the meeting on schedule without stifling valuable input.
