Time to distill another bloated (but good) BusinessWeek piece.

Marissa Mayer’s six keys to running successful meetings:

1. Set a firm agenda. Mayer requests a meeting agenda ahead of time that outlines what the participants want to discuss and the best way of using the allotted time.

2. Assign a note-taker. A Google meeting features a lot of displays. On one wall, a projector displays the presentation, while right next to it, another projector shows the transcription of the meeting. Yet another displays a 4-foot image of a ticking stopwatch. Always capture an official set of notes and send a copy to those who missed the meeting.

3. Carve out micro-meetings. Mayer’s shortest block of time her calendar permits is 30 minutes, so she sets aside micro-meetings lasting only five or 10 minutes within a larger block of time.

4. Hold office hours. Beginning at 4 p.m., for 90 minutes a day, Mayer holds office hours. Employees add their name to a board outside her office, and she sees them on a first-come, first-serve basis. During office hours, Mayer can get through up to 15 meetings, averaging seven minutes per person.

5. Discourage politics, use data. Make the approval process for projects a science. Google chooses designs on a clearly defined set of metrics and how well they perform against those metrics. Designs are chosen based on merit and evidence, not personal relationships. [Imagine that!]

6. Stick to the clock. To add a little pressure to keep meetings focused, Google gatherings often feature a giant timer projected 4 feet tall on the wall, counting down the minutes left for a particular meeting or topic.

These are all good, but I still like Michael Dell’s “no chairs allowed in meetings” idea best. Combine no chairs with a four foot tall countdown timer and things will really get done.