We spend 85% of our time in meetings and they negatively impact our wellbeing.
WHY are we stuck in a culture of pointless meetings?
"I just declined every single meeting I got. Not one person ever said, ‘Where were you?’ or ‘I need to catch up with you on this.’ And I thought—what the hell have I been doing even going to them if no one even noticed I was missing?”
We’ve all been there. You’re sitting in a meeting, watching the clock, wondering why this couldn’t have been a simple email update. Worse, you realise that not showing up wouldn’t have made a difference—because no one would have noticed.
This isn’t just an irritation; it’s a systemic issue in many organisations, where meetings exist not because they serve a clear purpose, but because they give the illusion of productivity.
In a recent coaching session, one of my clients shared their experience of returning to a workplace ritual they thought they’d escaped—a standing meeting about the National Student Survey (NSS). The problem? The meeting had zero impact on the metric it was designed to track.
Instead of addressing the real issue—why students weren’t engaging with the survey—the meeting was simply a way to prove that action was being taken. Attendance dwindled. Agendas became repetitive. Eventually, people stopped showing up.
And the telling part? No one even followed up when they didn't.
Why Meetings Have Become Performative, Not Productive
We often hold onto meetings long after they’ve lost relevance because they signal activity, even if they don’t drive results. They provide leaders with a way to say, “Look, I’m doing something.”
But as my client pointed out, the real problem wasn’t in the meeting—it was in how the KPI was set up in the first place.
The person leading the meeting had been assigned responsibility for increasing NSS engagement. But here’s the issue: they had no actual control over the factors that influenced it. Students weren’t answering calls from unknown numbers. Survey fatigue meant they didn’t distinguish between important feedback requests and everyday admin. The person tasked with ‘fixing’ this had no authority over the departments that interacted with students daily.
It’s impossible to lead effectively when you’re responsible for something you can’t influence. Instead of using the meeting to address systemic barriers—how departments could better communicate the survey’s importance, or how to shift outreach strategies—it became an empty calendar filler.
How to spot (and kill) pointless meetings
Meetings should earn their place on your calendar. Here are three ways to assess whether a meeting is truly valuable:
- Does it require live discussion? If the meeting exists to share updates that could be reviewed asynchronously, scrap it. A shared document, Teams message, or recorded video may be more effective.
- Is it solving a problem? If a meeting keeps happening without tangible actions or decisions being made, it’s a reporting mechanism, not a working session. Shift to problem-solving, or cancel it.
- Would anyone notice if it disappeared? If skipping a meeting doesn’t require a follow-up, it’s probably not necessary.
One of the most revealing moments in our conversation was when my client admitted they had started declining every single meeting invite before leaving their role. Not one person followed up. Not one person asked why they weren’t there. That’s how meaningless most of those meetings were.
A Simple Fix: The ADY Meeting Invitation (access it here)
One of the tools we recommend at Go Slow to Go Fast is the ADY Meeting Invitation a micro pause for meeting prep to prevent that “this could have been an email” feeling.
Here’s how it works:
When you send your meeting invitation, use the ADY method:
- Achieve: What’s the purpose? What needs to be accomplished by the end of the meeting?
- Discuss: What are the key topics? What information needs to be brought into the room?
- You: What do you need from participants before and during the meeting?
For example:
Achieve: This meeting is to agree on the budget-setting process. By the end, we need to establish roles and responsibilities.
Discuss: Current guidance from leadership, deadlines, and communication strategies.
You: Please bring any relevant communications and team concerns. During the meeting, contribute ideas and potential solutions.
This small but powerful intervention forces everyone to pause and clarify the meeting’s value upfront, reducing the likelihood of wasted time.
Busyness Isn’t a Badge of Honour
One of the biggest barriers to reducing meetings is ego. People want to feel needed. A diary filled with back-to-back meetings looks important, even if it leads to decision fatigue, lack of focus, and poor execution.
But real leadership isn’t about filling time—it’s about creating space for the work that actually matters.
If you’re serious about freeing up your team’s time for meaningful work, start asking:
- What’s the purpose of this meeting?
- Is there a more efficient way to achieve the same outcome?
- What would happen if we cancelled it?
Because in a work culture that glorifies busyness, the smartest leaders slow down and question what truly adds value—before they speed up again.
What’s the most pointless meeting you’ve ever attended?
