Spare the meetings

“Meeting hours” are the most precious commodity in a knowledge organization. They carry a high cost but are incredibly valuable when used correctly.

• Meetings are expensive. Companies spend a disproportionate amount of payroll on meetings, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars at large companies.
• Meetings are zero-sum. You’re either talking about the work, or doing the work.
• Excess meetings are draining. Too many meetings too much of the time leaves you with little energy for real work.
• Meetings are flexibility killers. Rigid recurring meeting structures erase one of the biggest advantages of remote and hybrid work; flexibility.
• Meetings erode deep-work. Knowledge workers like developers and designers need large, uninterrupted blocks of time to get into flow state do their best work. Nothing of significance is getting done in that 30-minute gap between meetings.

Despite the price, meetings are absolutely vital, especially in remote and hybrid teams. Rich human interaction — collaborating, spit-balling, celebrating, commiserating, etc — is the foundation that great work and strong team culture is built on.

Get rid of low-value meetings — status meetings, high-frequency all-hands, etc. — in favor of async updates and save your meeting budget for high-value collaboration and teamwork.