If you feel like your calendar is controlling you instead of the other way around, you’re not alone. Many professionals are caught in a loop of back-to-back meetings, often with little clarity, purpose, or outcome. The solution isn’t just better time management—it’s a shift in mindset: Do fewer meetings and make the ones you do attend more efficient and actionable.
The Core Philosophy: Fewer, Better Meetings
Not too many meetings! That’s the central piece of advice. Being constantly pulled into meetings—especially large, crowded ones that are just used to announce information—is often a waste of your time. These sessions are usually recorded, so it’s far more effective to watch them at double speed later, extracting only the parts you need.
To gain back control of your time, understand the categories of meetings and how to engage with them more strategically.
Types of Meetings – And How to Handle Them
In a professional context, not all meetings are created equal. Here’s a breakdown of common meeting types, how important they really are, and what to do instead when possible:
1. Critical Strategic Meetings
- Purpose: Long-term direction setting, executive alignment, crisis response.
- Importance: High
- When to skip: Only with clear rescheduling and communication.
- Alternative: Asynchronous decision memos with mandatory deadlines for input.
2. Decision-Making or Approval Meetings
- Purpose: Finalize projects, budgets, and cross-functional sign-offs.
- Importance: High
- When to skip: Rarely advisable, but reduce the number of participants and the meeting length.
- Alternative: Collaborative docs with tracked changes, comments, or digital sign-offs.
3. Planning & Coordination Meetings
- Purpose: Align timelines, responsibilities, and dependencies (e.g., sprint planning).
- Importance: Medium to High
- When to skip: Risk of misalignment if skipped.
- Alternative: Well-structured written updates; tools like Jira or Asana for task tracking.
4. One-on-One Meetings
- Purpose: Feedback, mentorship, career growth, and personal support.
- Importance: Medium
- When to skip: Occasionally okay, but long-term gaps may erode trust.
- Alternative: Async check-ins with structured prompts or flexible “office hours.”
5. Information Sharing / Status Updates
- Purpose: Share progress, risks, changes.
- Importance: Medium
- When to skip: Risk of silos or redundant work.
- Alternative: Async dashboards, video updates, or written summaries/newsletters.
6. Brainstorming / Ideation Sessions
- Purpose: Collaborative creativity and solution exploration.
- Importance: Medium
- When to skip: Potential loss of diverse input.
- Alternative: Time-boxed contribution via collaborative tools like Miro or FigJam.
7. Training & Onboarding
- Purpose: Skill-building and onboarding new team members.
- Importance: Medium
- When to skip: Risk of decreased productivity for new hires.
- Alternative: Self-paced courses, recorded sessions, or peer-led shadowing.
8. Social / Team-Building Meetings
- Purpose: Maintain team culture and relationships.
- Importance: Low to Medium
- When to skip: If optional, may not always be necessary.
- Alternative: Async team rituals (e.g., kudos boards), informal virtual spaces.
9. Recurring Rituals Without Clear Purpose
- Purpose: Often habitual with vague or no agenda.
- Importance: Low
- When to skip: Often beneficial.
- Alternative: Cancel and reassess; replace with “office hours” or quarterly check-ins.
Best Practices for the Meetings You Do Attend
Once you’ve filtered down to only the meetings that truly require your presence, the next step is to make every minute count.
1. Have a Clear Agenda If you’re not the organizer, ask for the main reason you’re invited. Clarify whether your participation is truly mandatory.
2. Stick to the Agenda Avoid letting meetings drag. If the discussion needs to continue, schedule a follow-up with only the people who really need to be there.
3. Make Every Meeting Actionable
- Use a template for structure.
- Focus on clarifying or exchanging key information.
- Always define what the follow-ups are.
- You don’t need a full report.
- Just make sure everyone knows the outcomes and next steps.
4. Share and Track Follow-Ups
- Send a quick summary to participants, or better:
- Post it to a shared space like a Kanban board in a project tool.
- Check on completion regularly.
5. Learn From Inefficient Meetings
If you’re consistently attending meetings where:
- No outcomes are captured,
- No follow-ups are defined,
- You don’t have a clear role…
…it’s a strong sign that you can likely skip these meetings in the future. Schedule something more productive during that time instead.
6. Clarify Your Role and Tasks
Before leaving any meeting, make sure:
- You know what’s expected of you.
- You’ve written down your next action as a to-do item.
- You’ve asked the right questions to understand your role and the information you need.
Final Thoughts
Meetings aren’t going away—but unnecessary ones should. Be intentional about which meetings you attend, and ruthless about how you run them. Reserve your calendar for work that moves the needle—and when you do step into a meeting, make it matter.
You don’t need more hours in the day. You just need fewer, better meetings.
Checklist
- Decline unnecessary meetings – Avoid large, info-only sessions (watch recordings at double speed instead).
- Know the meeting type – Only attend if it’s strategic, decision-making, or truly needs your input.
- Always ask for an agenda – If it’s not clear why you’re invited, clarify your role before accepting.
- Make meetings actionable – Stick to the agenda, define clear next steps, and log follow-ups.
- Share outcomes efficiently – Use shared tools (like Kanban boards) to track and check on tasks.
- Assess recurring meetings – Cancel or replace any without a clear purpose or evolving agenda.
- Own your action items – Write down your tasks and confirm your responsibilities before leaving.