R.J. Cutler sums up what he learned about business from Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, during the making of his film The September Issue.

I work in the film business, where schmoozing is an art form, lunch hour lasts from 12:30 until 3, and every meeting takes an hour whether there's an hour's worth of business or not. Not so at Vogue, where meetings are long if they go more than seven minutes and everyone knows to show up on time, prepared and ready to dive in. In Anna's world, meetings often start a few minutes before they're scheduled. If you arrive five minutes late, chances are you'll have missed it entirely. Imagine the hours of time that are saved every day by not wasting so much of it in meetings.

Before coming to Taiwan I was largely saved from the meeting culture that seems so prevalent in many organizations here. Hours wasted in meetings that have little to no relevance to you and unpaid overtime to make for the loss in productivity. The meeting culture at Vogue is a refreshing change from this experience.

Via Kottke

Categorized: Work and Working , Productivity

Tagged: GTD, Meetings, Productivity