Meetings are devouring our workdays at an alarming rate. The average UK worker spends over 23 days annually in meetings—almost an entire working month! When we honestly examine our calendars, many of us discover that meetings consume more than half our available work time, forcing us to complete actual tasks during personal time.
This episode tackles the meeting problem head-on with practical solutions to regain control of your calendar and boost your productivity. I walk you through the essential first step—a meeting audit—to help you understand where your time is going and which meetings are truly valuable. Then I share five game-changing strategies: setting firm boundaries to avoid overscheduling, filtering meeting invitations ruthlessly, reducing meeting length, scheduling buffer time between meetings, and maximizing productivity within the meetings you do attend.
These aren’t just theoretical concepts—they’re battlefield-tested approaches that can transform your workday. Imagine having dedicated time for deep work, arriving at meetings refreshed rather than frazzled, and leaving discussions with clear action plans instead of vague commitments. The transformation begins with small changes that build momentum toward a more productive work culture.
Ready to break free from the meeting trap? Try implementing one strategy this week and watch how much time you reclaim. Share this episode with colleagues who might be feeling the same meeting fatigue. Together, we can shift workplace culture from endless talking about work to actually doing the meaningful work that moves us forward.
🔎 Meeting Audit Questions
🕒 Total time spent in meetings – How many hours?
📆 Meeting frequency – How many per week/day?
⏳ Meeting length – Were they 30 minutes? An hour? Longer?
👤 Your role – Were you leading? Contributing? Just listening?
🎯 Effectiveness – Did it result in clear action steps or just more talk?
Rate each meeting (1 = not at all, 5 = absolutely):
✔️ Was it necessary? Did this require real-time discussion?
✔️ Was I the right person to be there? Could someone else have attended?
✔️ Did it result in clear action points? Or was it just a chat?
✔️ Did it help me make progress on my actual priorities?
Next step: Look for patterns! Are you in too many meetings? Can you eliminate, shorten, or delegate some? Time to take action!
Ep 7: Productivity Is Not What You Think It Is
Slow Productivity by Cal Newport 📚 Get it here* *affiliate link
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Meetings. Love them or loathe them, they’ve probably taken over your calendar.
Be honest—how many times have you sat in a meeting thinking, this could have been an email? Or worse, you’re secretly multitasking, answering emails, scrolling LinkedIn, or (let’s be real) putting the washing on while your camera is off? No judgment here—I get it.
But here’s the real kicker: the average UK worker spends over 23 days a year in meetings. That’s almost an entire month lost to talking about work instead of doing the work.
If your workday feels like a never-ending carousel of calls and Zooms, it’s time for a meeting makeover. In this post, I’ll show you how to cut down on unnecessary meetings, set boundaries, and make the ones you do have more productive.
You might be shaking your head, thinking, nah, that’s not me. But let’s do a quick check:
✅ Do you accept every meeting invite without questioning if you really need to be there?
✅ Do you leave meetings feeling like nothing actually got done?
✅ Do you find yourself working late because your workday was filled with back-to-back calls?
If you nodded along to any of these, you might be a meeting junkie. (Or at least your calendar is.)
And we all know a Julie from HR—the person who lives for meetings, dominates every conversation, and insists on scheduling just one more. But here’s the thing: meetings shouldn’t be your job—your job is to actually get things done.
So, how do you fix it?
Before you make any changes, take a cold, hard look at your calendar.
🕒 Total time spent in meetings – How many hours did you actually spend in meetings last week/month?
📆 Meeting frequency – How many meetings do you have per day/week?
⏳ Meeting length – Are they the usual 60-minute marathons, or could they be shorter?
👤 Your role – Were you leading, contributing, or just listening (aka wasting time)?
🎯 Effectiveness – Were there clear action points, or could it have been an email?
Then, rate each meeting on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = not at all, 5 = absolutely):
✔️ Was it necessary? Did this meeting truly require real-time discussion?
✔️ Was I the right person to be there? Or could someone else have gone in my place?
✔️ Did it result in clear action points? Or was it just another hour of talking in circles?
✔️ Did it help me make progress on my actual priorities?
Once you’ve done this, patterns will start to emerge. Maybe you’re overscheduled, stuck in meetings that aren’t essential, or sitting through discussions that don’t actually lead to action.
Time to fix it.
If you’re always in meetings, when do you actually get work done? (Answer: on the sofa at 10 PM while catching up on Netflix.)
A few ways to reclaim your time:
🚫 No-meeting days – Block out one or two days per week where you don’t take meetings at all.
🎯 Set a meeting limit – Maybe no more than 3 meetings a day or 10 per week.
⏳ Block focus time – Schedule actual work time in your calendar so no one can book over it.
🙅♀️ Say no (or suggest an alternative) – Just because someone sends you a calendar invite doesn’t mean you have to accept it!
Before saying yes to any meeting, ask yourself:
❓ Do I need to be there, or can someone else go in my place?
❓ Can I contribute in advance instead of attending?
❓ Can I just join for the part that’s relevant to me?
❓ Will this help me focus on my priorities, or is it just another distraction?
Be ruthless! If you’re in every meeting, you’re probably not focused on what really matters.
If something can be said in 60 minutes, it can probably be said in 50. Or 45. Or, dare I say it… 25?
📌 Try this: Next time you’re invited to a meeting, ask, “Can we do this in 45 minutes instead of an hour?”—or even better, suggest a 25-minute slot.
Shorter meetings force people to be concise, stick to the agenda, and actually get things done.
Stop running from one meeting straight into another—it’s exhausting.
Instead, schedule at least 15 minutes between meetings to:
☕ Make a cup of tea
🧘♀️ Stretch your legs
🚻 Actually go to the loo
Protect this breathing room—don’t let meetings run over into it.
If you do need to be in a meeting, make sure it’s worth your time:
📌 Stick to an agenda – If there isn’t one, ask for one. No agenda? No meeting.
⏳ Start and end on time – Set the tone by showing up promptly and keeping things moving.
📝 Clear action points – Every meeting should end with:
My challenge to you: Try this for just one week.
📌 Look at your current meetings—what can you decline, shorten, or delegate?
📌 Set clear boundaries—block no-meeting time in your calendar.
📌 Next time you’re invited to a meeting, question if it’s really necessary.
And here’s the thing—this isn’t just about you. Imagine if your whole team adopted these changes. Less wasted time. More productivity. Better work-life balance.
If you found this post helpful, share it with a colleague (especially that meeting junkie in your team 😉). And if you want more productivity tips, come hang out in my Productivity with Zest Facebook group!
🚀 Let’s make meetings actually useful again!
Speaker 1:
Hi everyone, welcome back to Productivity with Zest. Today we are tackling something that eats up a huge chunk of our work lives meetings. Love them or loathe them, they’re everywhere, but they don’t have to be a waste of time. In this episode, I’m going to be sharing how to cut down on unnecessary meetings, set really good boundaries and actually make the ones you do have to go to be significantly more productive. I have made a concerted effort to ensure my diary is not meeting heavy. Over the years, I have recognised the importance of focused, creative time, like when I write and record these podcasts, but these are the things that get bumped when our diaries are too full. There is a huge cost of meetings and there are some mind-blowing stats. In the UK, the average worker spends over 23 days a year in meetings. That’s almost a full working month.
Speaker 1:
I want you to be honest with me now. Have a little look at your diary for last week, this week, last month. Think about how many hours that you’ve spent in meetings. What percentage of your total working time is in meetings? I’m sure many of you are looking at figures that show you’re in meetings for well over half of your available work time. Figures that show you’re in meetings for well over half of your available work time. Is it any wonder that you’re working late or opening up the laptop when the kids are asleep, or doing your emails while catching up on your favourite Netflix series? You’re doing your work in your non-work times because meetings have gobbled up all the rest. So half of your time available to get your work done is spent talking about the work and not doing it. Now, please don’t get me wrong. Don’t think I’m saying that all meetings are not a good use of your time. I’m sure you can remember those meetings where the ideas are sparking and the progress is happening and everyone leaves knowing that that was a great use of their time. It is really important to get eyeball to eyeball or screen to screen with people. However, how many meetings do you come off thinking, well, that was a waste of my time. Or you turned off your screen so you can put the washing on and you’re not really engaged Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Or you’ve been so frustrated that, once again, julie from HR was there dominating the meeting and not letting anyone else speak, and she didn’t really need to be there.
Speaker 1:
Julie is a meeting junkie. Another hard question time. Are you a meeting junkie? Is Julie actually, you Do you collect meetings like I used to collect press pennies at Disney World this is a reference for my sister, jess, if you’re listening, when I became totally and utterly obsessed with press pennies, and I still have that collection 20 plus years later. Maybe a little less niche reference Do you collect meetings like a 10 year old collects football stickers in the 90s? I don’t know what they collect now, maybe fortnight vbooks, but anyway, it’s not just the timing meetings.
Speaker 1:
Meetings are part of the overhead tax of your projects that Cal Newport talks about in his book Slow Productivity, which I discussed in my episode. Productivity is Not what you Think it Is. They take you away from the things that you need to be focusing on to be truly productive. This constant switching between deep work and meetings drains our focus and leaves us feeling exhausted without actually achieving much. So how do we fix this?
Speaker 1:
Before you make any changes, your first step is a meeting audit. It shouldn’t take long, but I want you to take a cold hard look at your calendar for the past month and assess your meetings. Grab a notebook or open a spreadsheet and just track the total time spent in meetings. How many hours did you actually spend and what percentage of your actual work time was that? Meeting frequency how many meetings do you have each week, each day? Meeting length were they 30 minutes an hour longer? And your role in each meeting were you actively contributing? Were you leading it or were you just a passive attendee? Did you need to be there and the effectiveness? Were clear action points agreed upon? Did the meeting actually move things forward or could it have been an email? Now I want you to rate each meeting on a scale of one to five, with one being not at all and five being yes, 100%, based on was it necessary? Did this meeting truly require real-time discussion? Was I the right person to be there? Could someone else have attended in my place? Did it result in clear action points or did we just talk in circles and did it help me make progress on my actual priorities? Either go back and listen to those questions again and write them all down, or I will put them in the show notes and if you go to zestproductivitycom forward slash episode 24, then you’ll be able to get all the info.
Speaker 1:
Once you’ve done this audit, the patterns will start to emerge. Is the problem that you’re overscheduled and you’re not putting in any time for the non-meeting work, for the actual work. Are you attending meetings that aren’t essential for you, or are you sitting through discussions that don’t actually lead to action? Doing this audit will give you the data you need to make your own decisions about what meetings to keep, to shorten, to delegate or to eliminate altogether. From here you can set new boundaries and meeting rules, which we’re about to get on to next. So I have five steps for you to use to look at the way you currently handle your meetings and to try and contain them a little bit.
Speaker 1:
Step one avoid over scheduling and set boundaries. I’m all about boundaries at the moment. If you’re always in meetings, then when do you actually get the work done? On the sofa at home is the answer. A good rule of thumb is that for every hour you spend in meetings, you could block out an hour to do actual work, or some other strategies. You could limit meetings per day or per week, maybe set a rule that you will have no more than three meetings a day or 10 per week. You need to decide what levels are right for you. You could set no meeting days, so block out one or two days a week where you don’t take any meetings at all. I set Friday as my no appointment day, so I don’t have any coaching, I don’t book any meetings in. It is my day to do what I need to do that week, and that might be catching up on something like recording a podcast, or might be going out for a walk or seeing a friend or doing something completely different, but it is my no appointment day. Set clear boundaries, so share your availability and then defend it.
Speaker 1:
Just because someone sends a calendar invite does not mean you have to accept it. Suggest other times and if someone looks after your diary, share your rules with them and ensure they enforce them on your behalf. They can be your personal gatekeeper. Your calendar needs space for doing the work, not just talking about it, so why not block out time each day for no meetings so that nothing can be booked over it? It is important with this that you decide your main projects so you have a clear handle on your goals and your priorities. So when somebody invites you to a meeting, you are clear about whether that is something that you need to go to right now, and if you are getting full up with meetings, it is likely that you are focusing on too many things at one time. Remember less is more. Use this awareness of your main projects and your priorities to help you decide which meetings are a priority for you at the moment.
Speaker 1:
Step two is to filter your meetings. Do you need to be there? Before saying yes to any meeting, ask yourself do I need to be there or can someone else go in my place? Can I contribute in advance instead of attending? If they need your input, can you see the schedule? Can you see the outline and contribute in advance your opinion? Can I just go to the part that I need to be at and then, finally, will this help me focus on my priorities or is it just another distraction? Be ruthless. Don’t be a meeting junkie like Julie. If you’re in every meeting, you’re probably not laser focused on what actually matters, and I also really apologise if you are called Julie. This is a fictional character. I promise Quick exercise. Have a look at last week’s meetings and have a think about was it essential that I was there and for all of it, did it move the needle on my goals? Could it have been shorter or could I have attended just part of it? You can use this information for when you are being asked into a meeting to assess whether you need to be there.
Speaker 1:
Step three is to reduce the meeting length. If something can be said in an hour, it can probably be said in 50 minutes. That way, you can create buffer time to jot down action points before jumping to the next thing. Better yet, could it be done in 30 minutes or 25 minutes? Shorter meetings force people to be concise, to stick to the agenda and actually get things done instead of rambling. When someone invites you to a meeting that you know you need to be at, why not suggest they shift the timings from the usual hour? Invite to less, say 50 minutes, 45 or even 30 or 25.
Speaker 1:
Step four is to schedule buffer time. Stop running from one meeting to the next, constantly being late, constantly chasing your tail and feeling frazzled. Schedule at least 15 minutes of breathing time between meetings. Make a cup of tea. Stretch your legs. Actually go to the looo. This prevents fatigue and keeps your energy up throughout the day. Protect this breathing room. Don’t let meetings run over into this time. It is not there to mop up unproductive meetings. It is there to be the palate cleanser between your meetings, that you can arrive on time refreshed and ready for the next. And step five is to make meetings more productive. Once you’re in the meeting, make sure it’s worth your time, and here’s how you can do that.
Speaker 1:
Number one stick to an agenda. If there isn’t one, ask for one. No agenda, no meeting. Number two start and end on time. Respect everyone’s schedule. If there is a culture in your organisation of people turning up late, start that shift and start meetings on time even if everyone isn’t there. Number three have clear action points. Every meeting should end with specific tasks, who’s responsible and the deadlines. And number four appoint a leader, not just a note taker. Everyone should take their own notes we are grown ups unless someone really wants to. But one person should record action points and email them out for accountability. Decide who this is going to be in advance. So let’s recap you want to be cutting down on unnecessary meetings, setting your boundaries to protect your time, filter meetings, working out if you really need to be there, shorten meetings and schedule that buffer time and make every meeting action focused.
Speaker 1:
My challenge to you is to try this out this week. Do the meetings all day and try these new tactics and see how much time you get back, have a long, hard look at your calendar as it stands currently. What meetings can you shift? Which ones can you send someone else to? Which ones can you just cancel completely? Which meetings could you ask to be a bit shorter? Where can you create the space you need to do the actual work?
Speaker 1:
These shifts can take a little bit of time to bed in, so take it one meeting at a time, or you could do a drastic overhaul starting from today. Either approach would work. You’ve got to do what is right for you. It’s important to tell your colleagues what you’re doing. You could encourage them to do the same. Maybe send them this episode. Perhaps do the meeting order in a week or two again and see if there’s been a difference. Just think you could be part of a positive culture shift in your organisation. Just think how much better your workforce would work if you all adopted these changes.
Speaker 1:
And you may not know, but I do workshops for organisations and I could come to your organisation or online and deliver this kind of topic these workshops for you and your colleagues, to really help you make those shifts. If you found this episode helpful, I would love it if you forward it to that colleague or shared with a friend, and please rate and leave a quick review. It makes all the difference. If you want more productivity tips, come join us in my Productivity with Zess Facebook group. I’ll put the link in the show notes.
Speaker 1:
Next week I have something very different for you. I recently recorded a coaching session with the lovely Louise who graciously stepped up to be a guinea pig for me. Lou came to the session wanting to focus on how to prioritise her to-do lists and she found herself really busy but not always doing the things that advanced her goals. She had a firm goal, so she thought and wanted to make sure things were aligned. Through this coaching session, she realised her goal was actually hindering her progress, and making a shift to the wording made all the difference, even though the desired outcome was the same as the original goal. You do not want to miss this, so see you next time and remember less talking about the work, more doing the work.
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