Why it’s important not to overuse meetings…a waste of time?

As businesses get outfitted with the latest technology, meetings often become obsolete. Yet, many medium and large-sized enterprises insist on running them. In the modern office, meetings are becoming increasingly redundant. Worse still, they could actually lead to a fall in productivity.

Why Do Companies Overuse Meetings Right Now?

Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, creators of the popular project management app Basecamp, have one very big rule: no meetings. This lean, utilitarian way of thinking about organizational behavior has quelled the tendency businesses often have to overuse meetings. The idea behind Basecamp’s ban is to improve employee productivity. Why do companies still feel the need to overuse meetings today? Meetings give the illusion of work: employees feel like work is getting “done” since they’re present. However, without an agenda, these meetings can devolve into a lot of navel-gazing and bandying about information that is relevant to some but not all.

Milestones, Not Meetings

Plenty of small(er), niche agencies have found effective ways to allow for meetings without wasting time. The tendency to overuse meetings comes from not being on the same page from the get-go nor staying consistently communicative. These “lean” and trendy agencies, often filled with youthful, talented employees, use different methods for ongoing communication. To overuse meetings is, to them, not just a waste of valuable office time but an actual distraction. For intra-office communication, creative app solutions like Slack messaging, Zoom webinar apps, GoToMeeting and Screenflow for screensharing have become the best way to collaborate on an ongoing basis.

So next time, go ahead and issue that cancellation of staff meeting notice. Because interruptions end up costing the United States economy more than $588 billion a year, according to the firm Basex Research. This can break down into a total of almost 6 hours a day being lost to interruptions, the need for status updates and cross-team meetings.