How to Fight Meeting Creep & Too Many Meetings

To this day, I still remember reading Inc.’s article on too many meetings, titled “'Meeting Creep' Is Costing Companies Millions of Dollars. Shopify's Answer Is a Simple but Genius Behavioral Science Hack”.

It introduced a new word to my daily vocabulary: being time-poor. It’s the feeling you get when you have too many meetings but not enough time to attend them all.

We have all been there, feeling like there’s too many meetings on our plates; like they are a waste of time, energy, and nerves. It feels like they are designed to monopolize our time, leaving us overwhelmed and annoyed because we didn’t manage to complete our other tasks.

And no one wants to be a full-time meeting attendee who lacks the resources to work on tasks and perform their job.

So, if you are the type of person who answers the question “How about we schedule a meeting?” with a “How about we don’t?” and are tired of feeling the burden of meeting participation, you are in the right place.

In this article, you’ll find practical tips to combat meeting creep and the burden of back-to-back meeting schedules. By implementing these tips, you can reclaim your time and increase productivity.

Plus, if you like the article, you can share it with your meetingholic colleagues. Perhaps after reading this post, they'll realize you do not wish to collect meetings like stamps or Pokémon cards and would rather focus on keeping up with your workload efficiently. One could only hope.

What is a meeting creep?

A meeting creep means having too many meetings at work; in simplest terms, a meeting madness.

It’s when your day consists of numerous unproductive and inefficient meetings that prevent you from doing your actual work. As a result, back-to-back meetings make you feel drained, sluggish and emotionally fatigued.

“I hate meetings.”

I bet you do.

And it's because you spend countless hours per day doing something that doesn't add value to your performance and creativity. Attending meetings is most commonly meaningless and monotonous, leaving you worried about the tasks you probably won't have time to complete… Thanks to all the meetings.

Additionally, let's not even mention refocusing on your core work tasks after five meetings in a row. It's mission impossible. It is estimated that returning to a "flow" state, where you are fully focused and productive, requires working uninterrupted for at least 25 minutes.

Meeting statistics proves that how your feelings are valid, as having too many calls per day can affect you in various ways:

• People are now spending 250% more time in meetings compared to the pre-pandemic days due to remote work, leaving them almost no room for career growth and demanding them to be excellent at task-switching and multitasking.
• If you don’t have breaks between meetings, your brain won’t be able to destress and you’ll have trouble focusing.
• The average employee attends 62 meetings per month, with over half of them being completely unnecessary.
• Stanford University highlighted in their research that "Zoom fatigue" is a significant issue, caused by prolonged video meetings with the "non-verbal overload" and the constant need to appear attentive.
• 37% of employees believe they suffer from excessive meetings, and 71% feel that their meetings are unproductive and therefore lead to mental fatigue.
• Meetings waste $100 million a year for big companies.

How to fight meeting creep

Here are 5 practical tips to help you reduce unnecessary meetings:

#1 Set a specific time frame for each meeting.

Let’s say your colleague wants to schedule a call to discuss the details of the new project, as they find there’s urgent information they should share with you.

You can agree to the meeting and say: “Sure, how long do you think it will take to share all the information with me? Does twenty minutes seem like enough time?”

By doing so, you’ll set a clear message: when the timer ticks 20 minutes, the meeting is over. No exception, no prolongation, no “Wait, let me just add one more thing”.

With defining meeting duration at the beginning, you’ll be able to keep track of all daily meetings. All your planned and actual meeting time will be the same.

However!

If you are worried about having a gap between planned and actual meeting times, Memtime is there to give you a hand.

Memtime quietly records your actual time in meetings and allows you to compare the planned and realistic duration of each calendar appointment.

Memtime connects to calendar apps like Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, iCloud Calendar, and CalDAV Calendar. It imports your calendar events and shows you how long your meetings actually took.

Here’s how you would use a Google Calendar with Memtime:

• You open Memtime desktop app by launching it on your device.
• Then, you connect Google Calendar to Memtime and import all your calendar events.
• You leave Memtime running in the background.
• You open Memtime anytime you wish to see the actual duration of your Google Calendar events.
• You create accurate time entries based on your captured activities and appointments pulled from the calendar.
• You export time entries to any project software you’re using.

If Memtime sounds like your cup of tea, start your free trial now. All you need to do is create an account and download it; no credit card required.

#2 Create a meeting agenda.

There’s a simple rule of efficient meetings: each participant should get something out of it. When everyone gets what they want, the meeting is over.

Sounds about right, doesn’t it?

To maximize the effect of a meeting, create an agenda beforehand, with all the essential topics you should touch on, and share it with the attendees.

By creating a meeting agenda, you’ll know the purpose of each meeting and will keep it as long or short as it needs to be. Additionally, by sending the agenda to the participants, they’ll have time to familiarize themselves with the meeting purpose and topics early, allowing them to prepare questions, or any ideas they might want to share during the meeting.

#3 Do a meeting purge.

At the beginning of each week, sit down and review your schedule. If any meetings look unpromising or useless, message your team and ask if they could be turned into quick 5-minute conversations.

And if you wish, you can try having those 5-minute convos face-to-face. The State of Meetings Report 2019 concluded that 76% of professionals prefer face-to-face meetings over conference calls or video calls.

And remember: you don’t have to drop all the meetings.

Start with one.

#4 Introduce micro-breaks.

When there is no chance to do a meeting purge, you can do the bare minimum and introduce micro-breaks.

Micro-breaks are short, no-more-than-10-minute breaks between each meeting. You can introduce them by ending meetings 10 minutes earlier; it can make the biggest difference.

By taking this step, you allow people to take a mental break, boost their energy, and prepare for other meetings. This will prevent meeting fatigue and high stress.

#5 Promote walk’n’talk

Say no to meetings that involve chairs, desks, and bluntly staring at screens!

Our bodies need movement throughout the 8-hour work day, and what better way to achieve this than to start walking meetings, walk’n’talks?

So, instead of sitting at your desk during a meeting, pop some earpods, grab your phone, and take a nice, relaxing walk, preferably somewhere in the nature.

Your body will be grateful:

Ready to create a new meeting culture?

To properly fight meeting creep, you need to be diligent. It’s not enough to opt out of some meetings, you need to put in the effort to create a new, healthier meeting culture.

With all the previously mentioned tips applied, you’ll be able to reduce the number of unnecessary meetings and establish new meeting principles that will lead to more effective, shorter meetings with clear goals and predictable duration. And you’ll see, a new meeting culture will leave you feeling more productive and satisfied, and able to meet your workload.

Let Memtime help you on this journey by comparing the planned and actual duration of each calendar event. With Memtime helping you stay on top of meetings, you’ll be able to implement meeting purges, micro-breaks and even walking meetings.