THE 2 MINUTE GOLDEN RULE

Transform Your Contributions into Impactful Nuggets

The Principle: Limit every speaking turn to 2 minutes maximum in group discussions.

Why It Works:

• Attention decay: Harvard Business Review shows 40% engagement drop after 2 minutes of continuous speaking

• Memory boost: Participants retain 65% more information with concise, structured contributions

• Cognitive science: Aligns with working memory capacity (Baddeley, 2020) and cognitive load theory (Sweller, 2018)

Key Mechanisms:

1 Cognitive filtering: Forces prioritization of key ideas

2 Interaction equity: Counters conversational dominance

3 Information digestion: Respects listeners' processing capacity

Practical Applications

💼 Workplace

• Visual timer implementation (validated by Google AI, 2023)

• PEC structure: Problem → Evidence → Conclusion

• Result: 28% more efficient meetings (MIT Sloan)

👨👩👧👦 Family Dynamics

• Tangible time markers: Hourglass or talking stick

• Timed sharing circles at meals

• Outcome: 42% increase in child participation (Journal of Family Psychology)

🛋️ Group Therapy

• Therapeutic hourglass as neutral mediator

• "Summarize in 30 seconds" prompts

• Finding: 37% reduction in verbal monopolization (AGPA)

🏫 Education

• Semantic compression exercises

• Timed debate formats

• Impact: 31% more balanced participation (Educational Researcher)

📚 Academic References

1 Huang et al. (2022) Gender Dynamics in Workplace Communication

2 Wong & Szabo (2021) Attention Decay in Meetings

3 Google AI (2023) Meeting Efficiency Tools

4 AGPA (2022) Group Therapy Dynamics