[bunderbunder]

I picked up the habit of doing this manually a couple years ago, when my meeting load mushroomed following a reorg.

I also started getting assertive about declining meetings if I thought they were asking for too much time. Too many folks were in the habit of reflexively blocking out a full hour for a decision that could be made in 15 minutes plus a briefing email that everyone could be expected to read ahead of time. I was surprised to find that that one didn't really burn any social capital. Far from being offended, many of my colleagues thought it was a good idea and started following suit.

[smoyer]

+10 to event you said bit I have a couple more tips.

1) If it's not clear what the meeting is for and there's no agenda - just decline it.

2) If there are too many people invited - say no. So often there's really only about 1.5 people on the room who you really need.

[matwood]

> 1) If it's not clear what the meeting is for and there's no agenda - just decline it.

This is probably the best advice. Meetings should only be about hashing out the final details that might have had some contention. Start all conversations on email/slack and only meet when it becomes needed.

[danieltillett]

I loathe meetings like everyone else (nothing like being an academic to help develop a hatred of meetings and committees).

I have often thought that it would be great to limit the amount of meetings any person could organise on a monthly basis via some quota (say 6 hours a month). Everyone who wanted to organise a meeting over some trivia would then be forced to think twice - do I really need a meeting for this?

[eru]

Make people bid for your limited meeting time!

[danieltillett]

Great idea. Now someone just needs to turn this into a product.

[cat-dev-null]

People that want to pontificate, seem promotable and do less real work love by inviting everyone, every hour/day/week/month with standing meetings, while said folks trying to do more real work should take time out to hear themselves blather on abstractly about work someone else may be (maybe you) get voluntold into doing.

No agenda... not attending. Not reasonably necessary... not attending.

Sounds d!ckish/selfish, but survival skills in large orgs require some gambits.

[rperce]

Do you know, you're allowed to swear on the Internet? It's okay, I promise.

[rperce]

Do you know you're allowed to swear on the Internet? It's okay, I promise