Unpopular Opinion: Most Meetings Are Just Procrastination

It's Tuesday at 10 a.m. Six people join a video call to "align" on a new product page. For the first five minutes, everyone waits for one person who's late. For the next 20, two people talk while four others check their email. In the last five minutes, someone says, "Let's schedule a follow-up."

Thirty minutes. Six people. Three hours of combined work time. And the only decision made was to meet again.

Here's an opinion many people quietly share but rarely say out loud: most meetings are procrastination that looks productive. They feel like work. Sometimes they're a way to avoid it.

Busy Isn't Productive

Why do we love meetings so much? Because they make us feel busy. A full calendar looks impressive. Talking about work feels like progress. And a meeting gives you a reason to delay the hard, lonely parts of the job: writing the proposal, making the decision or fixing the problem.

That's what makes meetings a sneaky form of procrastination. You're not watching videos or scrolling social media. You're "working". But at the end of the day, the important task is still waiting.

A meeting where nothing is decided isn't a meeting. It's a postponement with a calendar invite.

The Real Cost of a Meeting

Most people think of a 30-minute meeting as costing 30 minutes. It doesn't. Do the math:

And there's a hidden cost: interruptions. Research by Gloria Mark at UC Irvine found that after being interrupted, office workers took an average of about 23 minutes to return to their original task. A meeting dropped into the middle of a morning doesn't just take 30 minutes. It breaks the deep work on either side of it.

Microsoft saw the same pattern in its 2023 Work Trend Index. People ranked inefficient meetings among the top disruptors of their productivity, and 68% said they didn't have enough uninterrupted focus time during the workday.

What Shopify Did

In January 2023, the e-commerce company Shopify tried a bold experiment. It used a bot to remove recurring meetings with three or more people from employees' calendars and encouraged teams to keep Wednesdays free of meetings. Leaders described it as "useful subtraction".

According to reporting by NPR and OPB, the company's chief operating officer said the change freed up around 322,000 hours, which he compared to adding about 150 employees. Some meetings came back, because some meetings matter. But many didn't, and nobody missed them.

You don't need a bot. But the lesson works for a team of three as well as a company of thousands: every recurring meeting should have to earn its place again.

When a Two-Line Email Wins

Many meetings exist to share information or get a simple yes or no. Those almost always work better in writing. A short, clear message is faster to write, faster to read and leaves a record everyone can return to.

That's it. No calendar juggling, no waiting for latecomers, no follow-up meeting. People respond when it suits their focus, and the decision has a clear deadline.

Writing has another benefit: it forces clear thinking. At Amazon, meetings famously begin with everyone silently reading a written memo, instead of watching slides. Jeff Bezos wrote in a 2004 email, reported by CNBC, that a well-structured memo "forces better thought". You don't need six pages. But if you can't explain your request in a few sentences, a meeting won't fix that.

When a Meeting Is Worth It

This isn't a call to ban meetings. Some conversations genuinely need people in the same room or on the same call:

Rules for Better Meetings

When a meeting is truly needed, make it count:

1. No agenda, no meeting. Send the purpose and the decision needed in advance.
2. Invite only who's needed. Others can read the summary afterwards.
3. Make it shorter. Try 15 or 25 minutes instead of 30 or 60. Work tends to expand to fill the time you give it.
4. End with owners and dates. Every meeting should finish with who does what by when.
5. Protect focus blocks. Keep at least one morning or one day a week free of meetings, like Shopify's Wednesdays.
6. Review recurring meetings monthly. If one hasn't produced a decision in a month, cancel it.

If you're the owner, your calendar sets the example. Fewer meetings for you often means more time for the work only you can do, as we explain in our guide to delegation.

Conclusion: Write First, Meet Second

The next time you're about to send a meeting invite, stop and ask: could this be two lines in an email? More often than you'd expect, the answer is yes.

This week, look at your calendar and cancel or shorten one recurring meeting. Replace it with a clear written update and see if anyone misses it. Your best work happens in focused time, not in meetings about the work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are meetings a waste of time?

Not all of them, but many are. Meetings that only share information or end without a decision can often be replaced by a short written update.

What did Shopify do with meetings?

In early 2023, Shopify removed recurring meetings with three or more people from calendars and encouraged meeting-free Wednesdays, reporting about 322,000 hours freed.

When should I use email instead of a meeting?

Use email for updates, simple approvals and questions with clear answers. Use meetings for complex disagreements, sensitive topics and brainstorming.

How long should a meeting be?

As short as possible. Many teams use 15 or 25 minutes instead of 30 or 60, with a clear agenda and a decision as the goal.

How do I calculate the cost of a meeting?

Multiply its length by the number of people attending and their average hourly cost. Remember that interruptions add hidden costs too.