Because your calendar shouldn’t feel like a hostage situation
We have a rule at LaughingFaceSoftware: if you can’t tell us why we’re meeting in one sentence, we’re not meeting. We’ll send a Loom. We’ll write a document. We’ll do literally anything other than sit in a room saying “thoughts?” for 45 minutes.
This isn’t anti-meeting ideology. Meetings can be valuable. The problem is that most meetings aren’t. They’re poorly planned, poorly run, and poorly attended by people who have better things to do.
Here’s how to fix that.
The Cost Nobody Calculates
Before we talk about better meetings, let’s talk about the real cost of bad ones.
A one-hour meeting with six people isn’t one hour. It’s six hours of combined time. If those people average $75/hour fully loaded, that meeting cost $450. Do that weekly for a year, and you’ve spent $23,400 on a single recurring meeting.
Now multiply that by every meeting on your calendar.
Most organizations have never done this math. If they did, they’d be horrified.
The hidden costs:
- Context switching: The 30 minutes before and after a meeting are often unproductive. People don’t start deep work knowing they’ll be interrupted soon.
- Fragmented calendars: Three one-hour meetings don’t leave you with five hours of work time. They leave you with scattered 30-minute chunks where meaningful work is impossible.
- Decision fatigue: Every meeting requires attention, even if you’re just listening. That attention is finite.
- Opportunity cost: What could those six people have accomplished in that hour if they weren’t in your meeting?
Bad meetings don’t just waste time. They destroy the conditions for good work.
The Only Three Meetings That Matter
Most meetings fall into three categories. If yours doesn’t fit one of these, question whether it should exist.
1. Decision meetings
Purpose: Make a specific decision that requires synchronous discussion.
When it’s valid: The decision involves tradeoffs that need debate. Multiple perspectives are genuinely needed. The decision can’t be made asynchronously because context would be lost.
When it’s not: You already know what you’re going to decide and just want buy-in. The decision is straightforward and could be made via document or chat.
2. Information transfer meetings
Purpose: Share information that’s better communicated live than in writing.
When it’s valid: The information is complex and questions are expected. Nuance matters and could be lost in text. The audience needs to hear it at the same time for coordination reasons.
When it’s not: A document, video, or email would work just as well. You’re presenting slides that people could read themselves.
3. Relationship meetings
Purpose: Build trust, alignment, or rapport that can’t happen asynchronously.
When it’s valid: You’re working with someone new. There’s tension that needs to be addressed. You need to understand someone’s perspective deeply.
When it’s not: You’re just catching up out of habit. The relationship is already solid and doesn’t need maintenance.
If your meeting doesn’t clearly fit one of these categories, cancel it. Send a message instead.
Meetings to Kill Immediately
Some meetings are never worth having. If these are on your calendar, delete them.
Status update meetings
“Everyone go around and share what you’re working on.”
This is information transfer that’s better done asynchronously. Write your status in a shared doc or channel. If someone has questions, they can ask. You just saved everyone an hour of listening to updates that don’t affect them.
Meetings without agendas
If the organizer can’t tell you what you’re deciding or accomplishing, they haven’t thought it through. Ask for an agenda. If they can’t provide one, decline.
“Brainstorming” meetings
Group brainstorming doesn’t work. Research has shown this repeatedly. People generate better ideas alone, then refine them together. If you need ideas, ask people to submit them in advance, then meet to discuss the best ones.
Meetings to “get alignment”
What does alignment mean? If you can’t define it, you can’t achieve it. Usually, “alignment” means “I want to talk about something but haven’t defined the decision.” Figure out what you’re actually deciding, then schedule that meeting.
Weekly check-ins that have outlived their usefulness
That recurring meeting made sense when you started. Does it still? Many recurring meetings continue long after their purpose has been served. Review your recurring meetings quarterly and kill the ones that don’t pass the “one sentence purpose” test.
The Bottom Line
Good meetings are valuable. They create alignment, enable decisions, and build relationships in ways that async communication can’t match.
But good meetings are rare. Most meetings exist because someone wanted to talk about something and a meeting was the default. That’s not a reason.
Before you schedule your next meeting, ask yourself:
- Can I state the purpose in one sentence?
- Is synchronous discussion actually necessary?
- Who genuinely needs to be there?
- What will be different after this meeting?
If you can’t answer these clearly, don’t schedule the meeting. Write a document. Record a video. Send a message.
Your team’s time is too valuable to spend in rooms saying “thoughts?” for 45 minutes. Respect it.
LaughingFaceSoftware helps teams work better, not just write better code. If your engineering organization is drowning in meetings and struggling to ship, we’d love to talk. Reach out.
