Like you just wasted a huge chunk of your life?
Here’s why:
The worst interruptions (to productivity) are meetings.
- They’re usually about words and abstract concepts, not real things.
- They usually convey an abysmally small amount of information per minute.
- They drift off-subject easier than a Chicago cab in a snowstorm.
- They require preparation that most people don’t have time for.
- They frequently have agendas so vague that no-body is really sure of the goal.
- They often include at least one moron who inevitably gets his turn to waste everyone’s time with nonsense.
- Meetings procreate. One meeting leads to another meeting leads to another…
When you think about it the true cost of meetings is staggering.
Let’s say you’re going to schedule a meeting that lasts one hour, and you invite ten people to attend. That’s actually a ten-hour meeting, not a one-hour meeting.
You’re trading ten hours of productivity for one hour of meeting time. And it’s probably more like fifteen hours, because there are mental switching costs that come with stopping what you’re doing, going somewhere else to meet, and then resuming what you were doing beforehand.
Judged on a pure cost basis, meetings of this size quickly become liabilities, not assets. Think about the time you’re actually losing and ask yourself if it’s really worth it.”
– Taken from Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.
