Stop killing your team's productivity with pointless meetings

Most meetings are a waste of time.

They drain morale, kill momentum, and crowd out the work that actually matters. And yet, we keep scheduling more of them. 

Meetings have gone from necessary alignment to a default setting. According to Harvard Business Review, executives now spend nearly 23 hours a week in meetings, up from less than 10 hours in the 1960s. 

The problem isn’t meetings themselves, it’s the unnecessary ones. And there can be lots of those. 

The bloated catch-ups, the recurring status updates, the quick catch up calls that somehow eat up half your afternoon. They waste time, drain focus, frustrate your team, and cost more than you think.

It’s time to treat meetings like any other business expense, justify them, or remove them. 

This article will show you how, with a no-nonsense framework to decide what really needs a meeting, and what can be solved faster (and better) with async tools, updates, or silence.

The costs of unnecessary meetings

Every hour spent in a meeting is an hour not spent on deep work, speaking to customers, or strategic planning.

Here are the hidden costs:

• Productivity loss. Frequent meetings fragment focus and according to Atlassian, employees attend 62 meetings a month on average, and half of these are considered a waste of time. 78% of people we surveyed say they’re expected to attend so many meetings, it’s hard to get their work done.
• Employee dissatisfaction. Unnecessary meetings are a top workplace frustration. With 51% of people having to work overtime due to meeting overload, it’s a killer for staff retention. 
• Financial impact. A one-hour meeting with 10 employees earning £50,000 each costs over £250 in salaries alone. 

"A meeting is a gathering where people talk about the work they should be doing.” - Seth Godin, Author.

Unnecessary meetings are expensive. They erode productivity, cost money, and damage morale. They’re also boring for most participants.  Recognising their impact is the first step to reclaiming time.

You’ve got a meeting problem if…

If you have a creeping sense that meetings are out of control, you’re probably right. But if you need further proof, here are the red flags to watch for:

• Back-to-back calendars.
  If your team’s day is one long blur of calls, they’re not working,  they’re surviving. No time to think, no time to create, no time to breathe. That’s not productivity. That’s burnout on a schedule.
• No agenda, no point.
  A meeting without a clear agenda is just a time sink with a calendar invite. If you can’t define the goal in a sentence, cancel it. Agendas aren’t admin,  they’re basic respect.
• Meetings that are easily cancelled.
  If it keeps getting bumped, it was never urgent. If no one notices it’s gone, it was never important.
• Low engagement.
  Cameras off, multitasking, dead silence. These are the signs your meeting isn’t adding value. People show up because they feel they have to, not because they expect to get anything out of it.
• Groundhog Day discussions.
  If you’re having the same conversation for the third time and still haven’t made a decision, you don’t need a meeting, you need leadership.

"Meetings are a symptom of bad organisation. The fewer meetings the better." - Patrick Lencioni, author of Death by Meeting.

When you start to notice two or more of these signs cropping up consistently, it’s time to challenge whether every meeting is truly necessary.

Not all meetings are bad. Just most of them

Meetings aren’t the problem. Pointless meetings are. 

If you’re going to interrupt someone’s day, it had better be worth it.

Here’s when a meeting actually makes sense:

• You need to make a complex decision, and fast.
• You’re planning something strategic that needs live input.
• It’s a 1:1, feedback, or coaching conversation where tone matters.
• You’re running a retro or team alignment session that builds trust.

If it’s not one of those? Think twice.

And even when a meeting is justified, it still needs structure with a clear agenda, a defined goal and a tight time limit. 

The decision framework. Do we really need a meeting?

Before you send that invite, run it through a quick test. If you’re answering no to most of the questions, then don’t waste people’s time.  Send an email or drop a Slack message. Done.

Use this litmus test to filter unnecessary meetings. If you don’t need real-time input or consensus, an asynchronous update is usually better.

Image credit: todoist

There’s (almost) always a better option than a meeting

Most meetings aren’t necessary,  they’re just a bad habit. If what you need is clarity, alignment, or an update, there’s usually a faster, smarter way to get it done.

1. Email: when it doesn’t need an answer right now
   
   Perfect for updates, decisions, or sharing info people can read on their own time.
   Easy to document, easy to refer back to, and no calendar required. 

Keep emails tight. Use bullet points, action items, and clear subject lines. No one wants to read a novel.

2. Slack or Teams: when it’s quick and casual
   
   Need a fast answer or have a one-line question? Use chat. It’s great for clarifications and sharing links, and keeps things moving without interrupting focus. 

Use threads to keep it tidy. Set expectations for response time so no one feels pressure to reply instantly.

3. Async video. When tone or visuals matter

If you need to explain something complex,  but don’t need a live discussion? Record a quick Loom.
It’s more personal than text, can be watched anytime, and solves timezone issues

Keep it under 5 minutes. Be clear about what you’re asking and what action you expect.

4. Project management tools. For everything that doesn’t need to be said out loud
   
   Trello, Asana, ClickUp,  whatever your tool, use it to track tasks, timelines, and status updates.
   This means everyone sees the same source of truth, and there’s no need for status meetings.

Tag people, set deadlines, and write clear descriptions. If someone needs to chase you for context, the tool isn’t working hard enough.

5. Documentation: when you want to stop repeating yourself
   A solid internal knowledge base reduces repeat questions, onboards new people faster, and creates a searchable audit trail

Use templates. Keep it clean. Update regularly. Your future self (and team) will thank you.

If your meeting has a better async alternative,  take it. Don’t confuse real-time with real value.

How to reduce meetings without disrupting collaboration

Bloated calendars don’t fix themselves. If you want to stop wasting time, you need to make intentional changes and enforce them.

Here’s how to start cleaning up the mess:

• Audit your calendar like it’s eating your budget. Cancel the ones that don’t move work forward. Shorten the rest. Be ruthless.
• Set new rules of engagement. Make async the default. No agenda? No meeting. No exceptions.
• Give people permission to opt out. Normalise saying no to meetings that don’t need them. Respect people’s time, or they’ll find a company that does.
• Block meeting-free days. Carve out space for deep work. One meeting-free day a week can transform focus across the team.
• Lead like you mean it. If leadership still clings to endless calls, nothing else will stick. Set the tone by going async yourself.

It can be done. According to chief operating officer Kaz Nejatian, Shopify 'deleted 322,000 hours of meetings', by writing code which purged all recurring meetings with three or more people. He estimates this was the equivalent of adding 150 new employees. 

Final thought

Respect your team’s time. Protect their focus. Kill the meetings that don’t earn their place.

Real work doesn’t happen in meetings, it happens between them.

“Meetings aren’t free. Meetings are the last resort, not the first option. Five people in a room for an hour isn’t a one hour meeting, it’s a five hour meeting. How often was it worth that? Could you have just written it up instead? Be mindful of the costs and tradeoffs.” - Jason Fried, CEO, Basecamp