Unnecessary meetings. You know the kind—the ones where you sit down, stare at your screen, and wonder why you’re wasting another hour of your life on something that could’ve been an email. If you’ve ever worked in an office, you’ve likely experienced meeting overload. But lately, it seems that the modern workplace has developed a borderline obsession with meetings. They’re everywhere—on your calendar, in your inbox, and always looming as some unproductive monster waiting to devour your day.
Why Are We Even Here?
Let’s start with the core question we should be asking about every meeting: Why are we even here? In my experience, far too many meetings lack a clear purpose. You’ve got the ones where someone just wanted to “sync up” or “touch base,” which is essentially code for “I didn’t have anything better to do, so let’s kill some time.” Meetings without a real agenda are the worst offenders. You walk in (or log on) with no idea why you’re there, and after 30 minutes of vague conversation, you leave with exactly zero actionable outcomes. It’s like a black hole of productivity.
And let’s not forget about the “status update” meetings. These are the absolute bane of my existence. A dozen people are pulled into a room, only to go around in a circle while everyone reports on what they’re working on. Half the time, most of us couldn’t care less about the updates from other departments or teams. We don’t need to be there, and yet, here we are, listening to someone drone on about a project that has nothing to do with our work.
Meetings About Meetings
Here’s a special kind of insanity: meetings about meetings. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked to join a “pre-meeting” to “prepare” for the actual meeting. We sit there, talking about what we’re going to talk about, and then later, we sit in another meeting and actually talk about the same thing we already discussed in the pre-meeting. It’s like some weird corporate Groundhog Day where nothing ever really gets done, but we just keep talking about how we’re going to get things done.
The thing is, people seem to think that scheduling more meetings somehow equates to progress. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. Just because you spent an hour discussing a project doesn’t mean any work was accomplished. In fact, that’s an hour that could have been spent, you know, actually working on the project. Instead, we all sit around nodding and making polite noises of agreement while secretly plotting our escape.
The Overcrowded Calendar
The modern work calendar has become a battlefield of overlapping meetings, each vying for your attention. At some point, you realize you’ve got back-to-back meetings from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and you wonder, “When am I supposed to get any actual work done?” Spoiler: You’re not. And what’s even more infuriating is when people book “quick” 15-minute meetings that always end up going over time, because let’s be real—nothing important ever gets done in 15 minutes. The meeting will spill into the next half-hour, and before you know it, you’ve lost a chunk of your day.
Let’s talk about the dreaded recurring meetings—those weekly check-ins or bi-weekly standups that were probably useful at some point, but have since devolved into a routine exercise in wasting time. You can tell a meeting has lost its usefulness when it’s essentially the same conversation every time, with the same updates, the same “we’ll follow up on that,” and the same lack of real outcomes.
And have you noticed how meetings have a way of multiplying? You have a meeting to discuss a project, and at the end, someone says, “Let’s schedule a follow-up meeting.” Boom, now you’ve got two meetings where there used to be one. It’s like some sort of twisted corporate rabbit breeding program where meetings just keep multiplying until your entire calendar is packed, and you have no time left to actually do the work that the meetings are about.
The Over-Inviting Epidemic
One of the most frustrating aspects of unnecessary meetings is the over-inviting epidemic. You get a meeting invite and see there are 20 other people on the list. Why? Do all 20 people really need to be there? Spoiler: No, they don’t. Most of the time, only two or three people need to be in that room (or Zoom call), but someone decided to invite the entire department, just in case. What happens then? Half the people are sitting there zoning out, checking their phones, or worse, pretending to listen while doing actual work in the background because they know they’re not needed.
It’s as if there’s this strange belief that if we invite more people, the meeting becomes more “official” or “important.” In reality, it just becomes more bloated and less effective. The more people you invite, the harder it becomes to get anything done. Everyone has their own opinion, and we all know how much corporate culture loves “alignment.” So instead of getting to the point, we spend 45 minutes trying to make sure everyone agrees on what shade of blue to use in the new logo.
And then, when the meeting is over, what happens? Half the people who were invited still don’t know what they’re supposed to do, because the meeting was so unfocused. And the people who didn’t need to be there? They just lost an hour of their time, which they’ll now have to make up later in the day by working late. It’s a never-ending cycle of wasted time and lost productivity.
The PowerPoint Problem
Let me take a moment to rant about PowerPoint presentations in meetings. Why do we need to see a slide deck for everything? PowerPoint has become the crutch of the modern meeting. Instead of just having a straightforward conversation, we now need a visual aid to explain every single concept. You can’t just say, “Here’s the issue, and here’s what we’re going to do about it.” No, you need to spend hours crafting a slide deck with pretty graphics, bullet points, and transitions to make it look like you’ve put in extra effort.
And then we spend half the meeting staring at slides while someone reads off the bullet points—points we could have just read ourselves in five minutes. The worst part is, most PowerPoint presentations are just fluff. You get five slides in and realize there’s no real substance. But we go through the motions anyway, because that’s what meetings have become—an endless parade of slideshows and graphs that no one really cares about.
The Silent Killers: Multitasking and Fake Engagement
Here’s the dirty little secret of modern meetings: no one is paying attention. Everyone is multitasking. You can’t tell me that in a virtual meeting, half the attendees aren’t secretly checking their emails, browsing social media, or working on something else entirely. It’s because most meetings are so devoid of real content or purpose that people don’t feel engaged. They’re physically there, but mentally, they’ve checked out.
And let’s talk about fake engagement—that thing where people nod along and pretend to be invested, even though they have no idea what’s going on. You ask for feedback, and you get a bunch of blank stares or, worse, vague comments that don’t add anything to the conversation. People are just trying to get through the meeting without being called out, and I don’t blame them. When a meeting is that unnecessary, your survival instinct kicks in, and you just try to avoid standing out.
Solutions: Kill the Meeting or Make It Matter
So, what’s the solution to all of this? First, we need to stop scheduling meetings unless they’re absolutely necessary. Ask yourself, “Can this be an email?” Nine times out of ten, the answer is yes. We don’t need a meeting to go over simple updates or share information. That’s what email, Slack, or any number of communication tools are for. Meetings should be reserved for discussions that actually require real-time conversation and decision-making.
Second, if you’re going to have a meeting, make it matter. Have an agenda, stick to it, and make sure everyone knows their role before the meeting even starts. No more showing up and winging it. We’ve all been in meetings where the first 10 minutes are spent figuring out what we’re supposed to be talking about. That’s a waste of time. Be clear about the purpose of the meeting, what decisions need to be made, and who is responsible for what.
And for the love of all that is productive, stop inviting everyone under the sun. If someone doesn’t need to be there, don’t invite them. Send them a summary afterward if necessary. Meetings should be focused, with only the essential people involved.
Conclusion: Break the Meeting Addiction
Unnecessary meetings have become a plague on productivity. They eat up our time, drain our energy, and leave us wondering how we can ever get our real work done. It’s time to break the cycle. We need to be more intentional with our meetings, cut down on the fluff, and stop pretending that talking about work is the same as actually doing the work. If we can do that, we might just reclaim our time—and our sanity—from the relentless meeting monster.
