Picture it: drumming your fingers on top of a conference table, desperately trying to keep your eyes open as a coworker drones on about something you already know. You just want to get back to work.
I’d wager all of us have been there before: stuck in a meeting that was only efficient at being a big waste of time.
A few years ago, I looked at my calendar and saw eleven meetings coming up before I’d answered a single email. I’d scheduled most of them myself. Some I accepted out of routine—what’s 30 minutes out of my day?
But I realized those 30 minutes of my day are precious, and that so many of those meetings could have been resolved in a call or email, or simply existed to create the illusion of collaboration when the decisions were already made.
I cut out that habit a long time ago. Not that I took an axe to every meeting, but I developed a framework to see whether a meeting was needed in the first place.
4 Questions That Tell You Whether a Meeting is Worth Having
Am I delivering information, or do I need a real-time back-and-forth? If I’m the only one talking for most of it, it’s less meeting and more PSA. Announcements belong in writing, where people can read them and return to them as needed.
Is there a decision to make, and does it require multiple people? Plenty of decisions look like they need a group when what they really need is one person with the authority to decide, informed by a few short conversations with key people. If someone can reasonably make the call, we don’t need a meeting.
Would this fall apart over email or a shared doc? Some things are too big or messy. Anything with real disagreement, anything emotionally loaded, or things where tone and timing matter as much as the content is best saved for a meeting or call. But matters of status, coordination, or wanting company while they think out loud? Skip the meeting.
Am I calling this meeting because it’s useful, or because it’s familiar? This one is tough to be honest about. Recurring meetings, especially ones that have long outlived their original purposes, survive on habit rather than value. If you can cancel a standing meeting without objection, it might tell you how necessary it really is.
Is this potentially confusing or easily misconstrued information? I’ll add here that having complicated things in writing is always valuable. But if you expect to field a lot of (potentially repetitive) questions, a meeting might be the best place for it.
So, What Replaces the Meeting?
When something fails that test, it doesn’t mean it’s not worth addressing. I reroute it to something that fits better.
A written update. Best for status, progress, or anything where people need the information but not anyone’s reaction. I put the ask at the top and the details underneath, so nobody has to dig for what I need from them.
A recorded walkthrough. Best for anything visual, anything with steps, or anything I’d otherwise spend fifteen minutes narrating over a screen share. People can watch as their days allow rather than worrying about coordinating a bunch of calendars for a one-sided explanation.
A shared doc with comments open. Best for feedback that doesn’t require real-time conversation. Someone can react to a proposal once they’ve had time to process it, so I usually get more considered input than I would from a room where the loudest voice often wins.
A direct message to the one person who owns the decision. Best for anything scheduled as a group meeting out of habit, when really only one person needs to weigh in and decide.
Am I having fewer real conversations? No. But those conversations are more weighty and purposeful because they aren’t competing with the things that could have been an email.
The Meetings I Still Have
I’m not down on meetings. Sure, in the jokey, commiserating kind of way. But meetings can be valuable. Some of my best decisions have come out of rooms where people pushed back and had a real dialogue that never would’ve happened over email.
But when we have a solid litmus test for when meetings are truly valuable, we better use our time and resources.
What’s your test for whether something deserves a meeting? Share how you draw the line in the comments.