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Most meetings stink. Yes, even the ones you organise.
Next time you’re at the halfway mark, look around. Video cameras will be off, someone will be checking their phone, others will be working, and you’re probably ‘multi-tasking’ with household chores.
Meetings aren’t cheap, either. Multiply the hourly cost of participants by the duration, and the bill usually runs to hundreds (or thousands) of dollars. Salaries may make this cost invisible, but it’s very real – and with that kind of investment, you want to make sure you’re delivering a time dividend.
Want better in 2025? These ten meeting hacks are designed to clear some precious time in your calendar:
1. Do you even need a meeting?
Give people space, and we’ll fill it! Case in point, meetings never ever ever finish early, do they? Harvard Business Review estimates that we are losing billions from wasted time – not including the hours we spend grumbling about our jammed calendars.
Before you flick out yet another invite, mentally go through this checklist:
2. Articulate the agenda
Can you quickly articulate why you’re meeting? The purpose should be clear before you join; if it’s not, ask. One person preparing an agenda is faster than many figuring it out on the fly (unless it’s a one-on-one, in which case, do it together!).
You are meeting to move work forward, so you should be able to answer these questions:
What do we need to share – and can we share it asynchronously ahead of time using a tool like Loom?
What do we need to decide?
3. Meeting minutes are meeting manners
We’ve all experienced what happens when no one owns the meeting notes – more wasted time on recaps and reminders.
So, utilise one human or robot to transcribe and summarise significant discussions, critical decisions and next steps. Send them out straight after the meeting, with names against actions for accountability.
4. Meetings aren’t a spectator sport
Trust us; there’s no FOMO when it comes to meetings. If someone is only there to stay across the conversation, send them a 2-minute follow-up instead. You’ve already got the minutes so they can stay in the loop in a fraction of the time.
The same applies to your own attendance: if you don’t plan to contribute, politely bow out and ask for the meeting notes instead.
5. Try the 15-minute meeting on for size
Calling all efficiency aficionados. Research shows that we can only pay attention for 10 to 18 minutes before checking out. If meetings are unavoidable, try scheduling them for 15 minutes.
It’s been a long time since we had an hour-long meeting, so even if 15 minutes is too short, default to a well-planned thirty. You can always follow up if you run out of time (but we challenge you to get everything done).
6. Put your phones away (gasp)
Phones are distraction machines – and while we scroll, our colleagues judge.
They’re not the only problem; our laptops can be equally enticing. So can washing, pets, social media, and messenger apps. So, turn notifications off and close your tabs. And, if you find yourself disengaged during a meeting, excuse yourself – if you don’t need to pay attention, you don’t need to be there.
Multitasking is a lose-lose – you’ll feel busier and achieve less than you would if you simply focused. And no, don’t just turn off your camera to ‘hide’; your colleagues can see exactly what you’re doing. 😅
7. Ban ‘back to backs’
Back-to-backs are no longer a badge of honour. Let’s give everyone 10 minutes back to review their tasks, collect themselves and turn their sights to the purpose of the next meeting. 💥
You can automate this. In your calendar settings, there should be an option to build in 10 minutes of padding on either side of every meeting. Simple.
8. Review your repeats
Regularly review team catchups, one-on-ones and progress updates. What started as a valuable meeting may have devolved into a waste of everyone’s time.
If you don’t think a meeting is valuable, add an agenda item to decide if it’s still needed or ask what needs to change to increase value or decrease time.
9. Meet free Monday?
Context switching exhausts our brains. Minimise the amount you do it by scheduling meetings more strategically.
Try to commit to a day a week without meetings, or a morning a week, or at the very least, block out time for deep work and plan your meetings around it.
10. Protect time to invest in yourself
The biggest self-reported barrier to professional development is busyness. Well, nothing changes if nothing changes, so challenge yourself to take one more step:
If you spend the first block on refining your meetings, we’re confident the investment will reward you with an immediate return.
30 second action:
Review your calendar for the week. Remove one meeting from it – either by cancelling the meeting (and replacing it with an email), or asking if you could receive the summary after.
Weekly leadership insights, straight to your inbox
You’ll get one article, insights from the web, a recommended book and podcast, upcoming events, and a 30-second action.