Face time or focus time?

“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.”

― Dave Barry

The modern workplace is addicted to meetings. The average knowledge worker now spends between 18 and 23 hours per week in meetings, up nearly 70% since 2020. Senior executives usually spend even more. And we pay for this in much more than money. Morale and mental energy suffer, too.

Steven Rogelberg spent two decades studying workplace meetings and found that most employees attend far more meetings than they need — and that these sessions are among the top predictors of fatigue and job dissatisfaction. His studies in the Journal of Applied Psychology show that excessive meetings directly correlate to burnout and reduced well-being—both during and after the meeting. More than 90% of professionals say that unproductive meetings drain their focus for hours afterward.

We’ve got to stop meeting like this!

In financial terms, the waste is staggering. Estimates from the London School of Economics put the cost of unnecessary meetings to U.S. organizations at $250–300 billion—every year! It reminds me of a sign I saw at a foreign car auto repair shop: “We may be slow, but we’re expensive.”

So why do we keep doing it? Is it habit? Do we think “busy” makes us look important? It seems we are led—not by judicious thought — but by our phone calendars. It’s easier to attend a standing meeting than think about what truly needs done.

It’s easier to attend a standing meeting than think about what truly needs done.

Transformative leaders recognize the value of time and protect it for their people. They replace the purposeless with the purposeful. The research points to several practical ideas:

• Cancel any standing meeting without an agenda or decision to be made.

• Declare “no-meeting hours (or even days!)” for deep work and watch productivity soar.

• Move updates and check-ins to shared documents or quick messages instead of meetings.

  
  

When you must meet, make it effective. Psychologists Carol Nixon and Glenn Littlepage found four habits that make a real difference:

1. Let everyone talk. When voices are heard, decisions improve.

2. Stay on task. Keep the goal visible — no rabbit holes.

3. Write things down. Summarize decisions and who’s doing what.

4. Respect time. Start and end when you said you would.

Meetings should be a tool for decision-making and clarity, not a tax on productivity.

Do your people need more face time or more focus time? Meetings should be a tool for decision-making and clarity, not a tax on productivity. “Less meeting” doesn’t mean “less communication” — it means deeper work, greater productivity and better collaboration.