5 Ways to Reduce Meetings
Meetings are not inherently bad. Some conversations are worth having in real time.
The problem is that meetings have become the default way many companies communicate. Information gets shared in meetings. Updates happen in meetings. Decisions happen in meetings. Questions that could take two sentences in an email become 30-minute calendar invitations.
And there is a real cost.
Harvard Business Review reported that executives spend nearly 23 hours a week in meetings, compared with less than 10 hours a week in the 1960s. Poorly structured meetings can also interfere with the uninterrupted time people need to think and get work done.
Harvard Business Review: Stop the Meeting Madness
More recent research has found a similar problem. A 2025 study of 199 full-time employees found that meetings can provide real benefits, but increasing meeting load also consumes personal resources and is associated with stress, boredom and burnout.
Business Horizons: The Meeting Load Paradox
The good news is that you do not have to eliminate every meeting to make a meaningful difference.
Here are five places to start.
1. Stop Meeting to Share Information
If the purpose of a meeting is simply to tell people something, you probably do not need a meeting.
Write it down.
Project updates, announcements, instructions, status reports and routine information can usually be communicated asynchronously.
The advantage is that people can read the information when they are ready, refer back to it later and respond when necessary. Nobody has to stop what they are doing because someone else has information to share.
Microsoft found that 62% of calls and meetings in its 2021 analysis were unscheduled or conducted ad hoc. The same research found that the average Teams meeting had grown from 35 minutes to 45 minutes.
Microsoft Work Trend Index: The Future of Hybrid Work
Before scheduling a meeting, ask:
Does everyone actually need to be here at the same time?
If not, write it instead.
2. Put Recurring Meetings on Trial
Recurring meetings are easy to create and surprisingly difficult to kill.
A weekly meeting gets put on the calendar. Then it stays there for months or years.
Sometimes the original reason for the meeting disappears, but the meeting doesn’t.
Look at every recurring meeting on your calendar and ask:
Why does this meeting exist?
What does it accomplish?
Does it still need to happen every week?
Could the same result happen another way?
Who actually needs to attend?
Do not assume that because something has always happened, it still needs to happen.
Atlassian found that 78% of surveyed workers said they are expected to attend so many meetings that it is difficult to get their work done. The same research found that 76% feel drained on days when they have a lot of meetings.
Atlassian: Workplace Woes, Meetings
Sometimes the easiest meeting to reduce is the one nobody has questioned in years.
3. Replace Status Meetings With Written Updates
Status meetings are one of the easiest places to start.
Instead of having everyone spend an hour listening to everyone else’s update, create a simple format:
What I completed:
What I’m working on:
What’s blocked:
What I need:
Everyone gets the information. People who need to respond can respond. People who do not need to be involved can keep working.
This also gives people a record they can refer back to.
The cost of status meetings adds up quickly. A one-hour meeting with eight people is eight hours of employee time. If that meeting happens every week, that is more than 400 employee-hours a year.
And that is just one meeting.
Atlassian found that 51% of respondents said they have to work overtime at least a few days a week because of meeting overload.
Atlassian: Workplace Woes, Meetings
The meeting may only be an hour.
The impact can be much larger.
4. Make People Explain Why a Meeting Is Necessary
Instead of asking people to explain why they cannot attend a meeting, ask why the meeting needs to happen in the first place.
A meeting request should answer three basic questions:
What needs to happen?
Who needs to be involved?
Why does this need to happen in real time?
That last question is the important one.
If the answer is simply “to discuss,” that may not be enough.
If the answer is “to make a decision,” “to resolve a disagreement” or “to have a conversation that requires real-time interaction,” then a meeting may make sense.
This changes the default from:
Let’s have a meeting.
to:
Do we actually need a meeting?
That is a much better question.
5. Save Meetings for What Meetings Are Good At
Reducing meetings does not mean eliminating human interaction.
It means using meetings for the things meetings actually do well.
Meetings can be valuable when people need to:
Make a complicated decision
Resolve a disagreement
Work through something ambiguous
Build alignment around an important issue
Have a sensitive or meaningful conversation
Collaborate in real time when that interaction adds value
They are much less useful when everyone is simply sitting there while one person provides information.
Research published in Business Horizons found that meetings can improve participation, engagement and creative performance up to a point. Beyond that point, additional meetings become a burden and consume the personal resources people need to do their work.
Business Horizons: The Meeting Load Paradox
That distinction matters.
The goal isn’t no meetings.
The goal is fewer meetings that are worth having.
The Real Cost of Too Many Meetings
The cost of unnecessary meetings rarely appears on a financial statement.
There is no line item called “hours lost sitting in meetings.”
Instead, you see it somewhere else.
Projects take longer.
People work later.
Important work gets pushed into evenings.
Employees lose uninterrupted time.
People feel exhausted.
And payroll continues while everyone sits in another meeting.
Microsoft reported that 54% of workers felt overworked and 39% felt exhausted in its 2021 Work Trend Index. Its analysis also found that time spent in Teams meetings had more than doubled compared with the previous year.
Microsoft Work Trend Index: The Future of Hybrid Work
The answer is not to make every meeting more efficient.
Sometimes the better answer is to not have the meeting.
Before you send that next calendar invitation, ask yourself:
What actually requires everyone to be in the same conversation at the same time?
If you cannot answer that question, you may already have your answer.
You don’t need a better meeting. You might just need fewer of them.
