Tips for Balancing Meeting Culture with Individual Work

We've all been there—calendar packed, back-to-back meetings, and by the end of the day, you wonder: "Did I really get anything done today?" It's a modern-day dilemma that can sap the energy of even the most focused professionals. Here’s how I tackle it: ⚡ **Guard your prime time**: Block off your most productive hours each day for deep, uninterrupted work. Meetings can wait. 🛠️ **Create an 'Urgent vs. Important' matrix**: Before you accept a meeting, ask: Is this mission-critical, or could it be addressed another way? Prioritize time for high-value activities that align with your goals. 💬 **Shorten your meetings**: Instead of defaulting to an hour, aim for 15-30 minutes and stay laser-focused on the agenda. ⛔ **Say no (gracefully)**: You don’t have to be in every conversation. Set boundaries. If your presence isn’t crucial, politely decline. 💡 **Leverage async tools**: If a quick update suffices, use email, Teams, or a shared document. Not every discussion requires a live meeting. 📅 **Set specific meeting days**: Designate a couple of days for calls and free the rest for execution time. 📈 **Hold 'walking meetings'**: Got a catch-up or status update? Take it on the go. It’ll boost your energy and creativity. 👥 **Bundle similar meetings together**: Consolidate team meetings, 1:1s, and quick syncs into one focused block. 📝 **Have a clear agenda and outcome**: Every meeting should have a purpose. If not, reconsider whether it’s necessary. Keep your focus on where it really matters. Meetings shouldn’t prevent you from doing what you’re best at: making an impact! How do YOU ensure meetings don’t consume your day? #ProductivityHacks #MeetingManagement #FocusTime #TimeManagement #Efficiency #LeadershipTips #WorkSmarter #SalesSuccess #ProductiveMindset

In April I sent a company-wide note with the subject line “I hate meetings.” Unsurprisingly, it’s our most-read internal communication to date. My message was simple: meetings can be incredibly effective when done right, but we’ve all adopted some bad habits when it comes to using our time – and our colleagues’ time – wisely.   After soliciting feedback from colleagues around the world through polling, group discussions and direct outreach, I shared our first round of meeting-focused updates:   ✔ Default meeting lengths in Outlook would now be 20- and 40-minute blocks, as opposed to 30 and 60 minutes. ✔ Pre-reads should be utilized more, prepared in a thoughtful way and sent at least 24 hours in advance. ✔ Even when the purpose of a meeting is clear, agendas matter! We should get in the habit of creating clear and concise agendas for all meetings, regardless of length. ✔ Less technical, but just as important: when considering a meeting, ask yourself – can this be done another way (e.g., e-mail, phone call, walk down the hall for an in-person discussion)? If a meeting is required, when considering participants ask yourself who really needs to take part. In the first month, total meetings per week dropped by ~1,800, and total audio minutes per week dropped by ~15%; that’s 282,280 minutes, or more than 4,700 hours. Stating the obvious, that’s rapid culture change. And while things have normalized a bit (at least, until our next round of updates), we’re still seeing a downward trend. Are these groundbreaking ideas for how to become a more efficient and effective organization? No, but they don’t have to be. Sometimes it’s as simple as 1) reminding people that we don’t have to operate a certain way because “that’s how we’ve always done things,” and 2) encouraging ownership of our time, the most valuable commodity we have. #CompanyCulture #TimeManagement #WorkSmarter

An Insight into Managing Meeting-Intensive Days Recently, I had an enlightening 1:1 with one of our young designers. They asked, "After a day filled with back-to-back meetings, I'm exhausted. How do you handle this, given most of your days are meeting-heavy?" This scenario is common for many of us managing large teams and products. Here are some strategies I've developed to thrive when meetings dominate your schedule: 1. Mindset Shift: Recognize that meetings are work too, especially in large organizations. As a young designer, I viewed meetings as productivity thieves. Now I understand they're integral to the work process. 2. Calendar Mastery: I structure my day via my calendar, scheduling focus times, breaks, and meetings. I batch tasks and allocate them to ensure time-sensitive work gets done. 3. Pomodoro Technique: I aim for 24 pomodoros daily, equating to 12 hours of intense work. This includes writing, thinking, conversations, tasks, and team interactions. On lower-energy days, I listen to my body and adjust accordingly. 4. Micro-Breaks: Between meetings, I take 3-minute rejuvenation breaks. My toolkit includes: - Breathwork (sukha kriya, nadhi shuddi, 4-2-5-2 breathing with mudras) - Quick exercises (e.g., a set of squats) - Mindfulness practices (breath awareness meditation) - Short walks (using a walk pad or stepping outside) 5. Deep Listening: During meetings, I practice full engagement without multitasking. If a meeting doesn't align with my priorities, I respectfully decline or leave, communicating my reasons authentically. 6. Efficient Follow-up: I rarely revisit recordings, treating them as equivalent to attending meetings. When necessary, I schedule dedicated time for this. 7. Comprehensive Note-taking: I document discussions systematically, which helps track learning and identify recurring themes for myself and others. 8. Operational Rigor: I maintain high standards in self-management and task execution. This operational excellence keeps work flowing smoothly and maintains quality. These practices have transformed how I navigate meeting-intensive days, balancing productivity with well-being. What strategies do you employ to manage your energy during meeting-heavy periods? I'd love to hear your insights! #workdesign

Too many meetings? A new study challenges many things we think we know about meeting overload. Here's what the researchers discovered. 1) Size matters For small teams (under 6 people), "meet when needed" works beautifully. But there's a tipping point: as teams grow larger, flexible scheduling becomes a disaster. With larger teams, someone will almost always want to meet (of course!), leading to constant interruptions. 2) Too few meetings Surprisingly, the study found that teams often suffer more from too few meetings than too many! Workers reported more frustration when they couldn't coordinate (missing crucial alignments) than when they had to attend "unnecessary" meetings. Example: A developer needing input on architecture decisions might waste days going in the wrong direction because they couldn't get timely coordination with colleagues. 3) Smart rules beat simple rules In diverse teams (different roles, productivity levels, schedules), basic rules like "meet every Monday" aren't enough. The research recommends these approaches instead: - Minimum gaps between meetings (e.g., 48 hours of focus time) - Maximum time without meetings (e.g., never go more than 5 days) - Multiple-person approval for new meetings Example: A software team might block off Tuesday/Thursday mornings as "no meeting zones" while requiring at least two developers to agree before scheduling additional meetings. 4) Fixed meetings For larger teams, standing meetings (e.g., every Friday at 3 PM) are remarkably effective. The data shows they never perform worse than 28% below optimal efficiency - making them a reliable choice, especially as teams scale. 5) The Hybrid Sweet Spot The most successful approaches combine: - Protected "quiet time" where meetings are prohibited - Designated "interaction time" when coordination is encouraged - This structured flexibility helps balance individual productivity with team alignment. Quick recap: As your team grows beyond 6-10 people, shift from ad-hoc scheduling to more structured approaches. But don't make them rigid - add smart safeguards to maintain flexibility while preventing both meeting overload and coordination drought. Source: Roels, G., & Corbett, C. J. (2024). Too Many Meetings? Scheduling Rules for Team Coordination. Management Science, 70(12), 8647–8667.

Yesterday afternoon we held our monthly CS Leadership Roundtable on Managing Remote Teams. During our discussion, Olha posed a question about balancing the need for alignment through meetings with remote CS teams and avoiding meeting overload and burnout and Debbie asked me to post my response here. This is an expanded version of what I was talking about during the webinar. 🤔 The Remote CS Team Meeting Paradox 🤔 Remote customer success teams face a brutal paradox: You need alignment to prevent silos, but meeting overload kills the collaboration you're trying to build. 🏁 Here's how the best CS leaders are solving it: The 50/25/15 Rule → 50% reduction in standing meetings → 25% converted to async communication → 15% reserved for true collaboration Meeting Hierarchy That Actually Works 💥 Weekly: 30-min team sync (wins, blockers, knowledge sharing) 💥 Bi-weekly: Customer portfolio reviews 💥 Monthly: Strategic planning + team building 💥 Quarterly: Deep relationship building 💥 Daily meetings? Only for crisis management. Async-First Wins ✅ Shared customer health dashboards ✅ Weekly Slack updates vs. status meetings ✅ Recorded video updates for complex situations ✅ Collaborative docs for ongoing projects The Well-being Integration: ✔️ Focus Fridays - No internal meetings ✔️ Morning protection - Deep customer work until 10 AM ✔️ Buffer time - 15-30 minutes between meetings ✔️ Energy management - Alternate heavy/light meeting days Watch for These Red Flags: Over-meeting symptoms: 🚩 Team multitasking during calls 🚩 "Quick calls" multiplying outside scheduled time 🚩 Complaints about lack of customer focus time Under-alignment symptoms: 🚩 Duplicate work across accounts 🚩 Missed expansion opportunities 🚩 Knowledge hoarding between CSMs The bottom line is that you want to create a culture where people want to collaborate because it makes their job easier and customers more successful, not because they're required to attend meetings. When alignment serves customer success, it becomes energizing rather than draining. What's your biggest meeting challenge with remote CS teams? Drop it below - let's crowdsource solutions 👇

Excessive amounts of video meetings are taking a toll—not just on our ability to do concentrative work, but also on our sense of interpersonal connection and capacity for meaningful, spontaneous, in-person dialogue. From our research, conversations with podcast/webinar guests, and personal experience, here are my top three recommendations for addressing meeting overload: 1. Encourage employees to block in-office time free of meetings. I suggest that at least 50% of time spent in the office should be protected from scheduled meetings. Remember: people value calendar flexibility (93%) even more than location flexibility (81%). If you want employees to show up in person, give them more autonomy over how they spend that time. 2. Ask managers to co-create better communication norms with their teams. Encourage team discussions about when to use email, chat (Teams/Slack), text/WhatsApp, phone calls, or in-person conversations instead of defaulting to video meetings. For my team, we’ve cut standing meetings, increased in-person gatherings, and now resolve many issues with a quick call or async message. (Ten minutes on the phone often beats 30 on a video call.) 3. Reassess standing meetings—frequency, duration, and participants. Meetings often take on a life of their own. Ask, "Are we call still clear on the purpose of this meeting, and who should be included?" Simply making some attendees optional can go a long way in reducing unnecessary load. Oh, and I hope it goes without saying, the design of the office space itself should be used to not only support tech, but to counter-balance the negative effects of it by building connection and relationships (Relationship-based Work). #hybrid #distributed #videofatigue #employeewellbeing #employeewellness #meetings #employeeengagement https://lnkd.in/eDpXuEgu

After 30+ years of leading teams, sitting in boardrooms, and surviving more calendar invites than I care to count 📅… here’s a hard-won truth: Most meetings could have been emails. I don’t say this lightly. I’ve been the new manager who scheduled the standing meeting 📆 “because that’s what leaders do.” I’ve been the exec dialing into 9 back-to-back calls 🎧 wondering why I wasn’t getting any actual work done. And I’ve been the CMO who finally asked, “What if we just… didn’t?” 🤔 Here’s what I’ve learned: ✉ Information-sharing belongs in an email. 🎥 Collaboration deserves a meeting. 🧠 Problem-solving deserves the right brains in the room — and only the right brains. ⏱ Everything else just steals time from deep work, creative thinking, and execution. Time is the most expensive resource we have ⏳— more than media budgets, more than tech stacks. Every unnecessary meeting is an invisible tax on your team’s productivity 💸. And if you add up the hours wasted company-wide… it’s not just annoying, it’s expensive. So here’s the life lesson: be ruthless with your calendar. Cancel standing meetings that no longer serve a purpose ❌. Move updates to Slack, email, or a shared doc. When you do call a meeting, make it count — tight agenda, clear outcomes, and the smallest room that gets the job done. Your team will thank you 🙌. Your CFO will thank you 💰. And you might even get some thinking time back 🧘. How about you — what’s your go-to “meeting detox” move? #Leadership #CMO #WorkCulture #Productivity #Meetings

Before sending out another 30-minute calendar invite, pause for a second and ask yourself: “Does this really need to be a meeting?” Because that *one* 30-min sync can secretly cost your team 5+ hours of lost focus.   (10 people × 30 minutes = an entire afternoon gone.) Most meetings feel productive… but they’re really productivity traps. Here’s a quick guide to choose smarter: 1. Status updates   → Async   Send a short Loom or a clear Slack message. People shouldn’t sit through what they can read in 90 seconds. 2. Brainstorming   → Meeting   Real-time energy sparks better ideas. Keep it short and appoint someone to capture action points. 3. Project reviews   → Mostly async   Share a Notion doc or slides. Only meet when decisions or disagreements need live discussion. 4. Performance feedback   → Meeting   Feedback is human. Tone, empathy, and eye contact matter more than paragraphs. 5. Weekly team syncs   → It depends   If it’s just updates—async.   If it’s planning, alignment, or blockers—keep the meeting but make it structured. 6. Task clarifications   → Async   Record a Loom explaining details. Eliminates the repetitive “Can you run that by me again?” calls. 7. Sharing proposals or new ideas   → Async   Send a doc and let the team reflect and comment thoughtfully. 8. Team wins & celebrations   → Async (with intention)   A Slack shoutout, a short video, or tagging contributors publicly goes a long way. The aim isn’t to eliminate meetings.   It’s to protect deep work—your team’s most valuable currency. Next time your calendar fills up…   Stop and ask: “Is this meeting meaningful, or am I just creating noise?” 👇 How do you decide when a meeting is actually worth it? ♻ Repost if you believe team comes first   ✚ Follow Preetam K. for more entrepreneurial insights and motivation. #leadership #productivity #remotework #teammanagement #workculture #entrepreneurship #founders #management #meetings #efficiency

You can often tell from the moment a meeting invite lands in your inbox whether it’s going to be a waste of time: The “team update” where two hours are spent reciting what everyone did last week. The “planning meeting” that spirals into hashing out minutiae that should have been handled offline. The “brainstorming session” where the loudest voices dominate the room. Some of these you can decline, but others come from your boss, a key client, or a senior colleague. Saying no isn’t always easy. But if you don’t, your schedule gets eaten alive. Here are four ways to reclaim your time and ensure you’re only in the meetings that truly matter: Know which meetings are essential. The short list: those where decisions are being made, or where strategy is being set. That’s where alignment happens, and your presence matters. Relationship-building can also be a valid reason. But routine “updates” should be banished to email. Raise the bar for invitations. It’s too easy for others to book your time. Create friction by asking requesters to clarify: What’s the purpose? What’s the decision? Who else will be there? Why do you specifically need me? If they can’t answer, the meeting probably isn’t worth your time. Offer a compromise. If declining feels too direct, suggest alternatives. A quick phone call, an email update, or a postponed check-in often resolves the issue without draining an hour from your calendar. Make tradeoffs visible. If you must attend, remind colleagues that your time is finite. Frame it as a choice: “I’m heads-down on Project B—do you think it’s worth shifting my focus to attend this meeting on Project A?” Often, they’ll realize it isn’t. Meetings consume an average of 62 hours a month, and research suggests half of that time is wasted. The passive-aggressive coping strategy ofshowing up late, multitasking, or tuning out only perpetuates the problem. A better path is to set clear boundaries, elevate the standard for what deserves your attention, and protect your time fiercely. That’s how you shift from being buried in meetings to doing the work that actually moves the needle.

Anyone else suffer from meeting overload? It’s a big deal. Simply put too many meetings means less time available for actual work, plus constantly attending meetings can be mentally draining, and often they simply are not required to accomplish the agenda items. At the same time sometimes it’s unavoidable. No matter where you are in your career, here are a few ways that I tackle this topic so that I can be my best and hold myself accountable to how my time is spent. I take 15 minutes every Friday to look at the week ahead and what is on my calendar. I follow these tips to ensure what is on the calendar should be and that I’m prepared. It ensures that I have a relevant and focused communications approach, and enables me to focus on optimizing productivity, outcomes and impact. 1. Review the meeting agenda. If there’s no agenda I send an email asking for one so you know exactly what you need to prepare for, and can ensure your time is correctly prioritized. You may discover you’re actually not the correct person to even attend. If it’s your meeting, set an agenda because accountability goes both ways. 2. Define desired outcomes. What do you want/need from the meeting to enable you to move forward? Be clear about it with participants so you can work collaboratively towards the goal in the time allotted. 3. Confirm you need the meeting. Meetings should be used for difficult or complex discussions, relationship building, and other topics that can get lost in text-based exchanges. A lot of times though we schedule meetings that we don’t actually require a meeting to accomplish the task at hand. Give ourselves and others back time and get the work done without that meeting. 4. Shorten the meeting duration. Can you cut 15 minutes off your meeting? How about 5? I cut 15 minutes off some of my recurring meetings a month ago. That’s 3 hours back in a week I now have to redirect to high impact work. While you’re at it, do you even need all those recurring meetings? It’s never too early for a calendar spring cleaning. 5. Use meetings for discussion topics, not FYIs. I save a lot of time here. We don’t need to speak to go through FYIs (!) 6. Send a pre-read. The best meetings are when we all prepare for a meaningful conversation. If the topic is a meaty one, send a pre-read so participants arrive with a common foundation on the topic and you can all jump straight into the discussion and objectives at hand. 7. Decline a meeting. There’s nothing wrong with declining. Perhaps you’re not the right person to attend, or there is already another team member participating, or you don’t have bandwidth to prepare. Whatever the reason, saying no is ok. What actions do you take to ensure the meetings on your calendar are where you should spend your time? It’s a big topic that we can all benefit from, please share your tips in the comments ⤵️ #careertips #productivity #futureofwork