Studies estimate that $37 Billion go to waste every year in the US because of unproductive meetings.
When it comes to executives in meetings, it’s estimated that their meetings can cost a company around $1,000 per hour.
Unproductive meetings can slowly eat away at an organization without employees even realizing it.
We studied anonymized, global data throughout the userbase of Solid to pick up insights about our collective meeting habits. Then we compared the results with scientific research on productivity to find ways to improve.
1. When we meet: why we meet at the wrong time
The most popular time to meet is in the morning at 10am. It’s smart especially if you’re getting to work at 9 or earlier. By 10am, all attendees will have had time to prepare for the 10am meeting, ask about last-minute clarifications or do some quick research on their own. All of this can potentially save your meeting.
Meetings in the morning are generally favored: 25% more meetings happen between 9am and 12pm than between 2pm and 5pm. That’s also a good thing: in general people are more receptive and productive in the early hours rather than in the afternoon. On the other side of that coin, 9am meetings, which represent 10% of our meetings overall, may not be ideal. Although, as a manager, you want your team to prepare for meetings way ahead of time, the reality is that last minute research often happens. If a few attendees come in unprepared, you might as well reschedule..
The big problems arise in the times we choose in the afternoon. In particular, we tend to meet at 2pm, right after we eat. Meeting while digesting isn’t so smart. It’s when you are the least alert, and generally feel tired. Some studies even suggest that hunger can positively impact our decision making abilities.
We also use our lunch breaks way too often to hold meetings. Lunchtime isn’t here to help you cram more work in the same day. Besides, studies have shown that meeting while eating is a bad idea. As they say: “don’t meet where you eat”… or something like that.
Average meeting time: still at 1 hour
Our meetings tend to last 1 hour. This goes to show the 1h-long meeting format is still preferred despite experts advocating for shorter times.
Remember, the 1 hour format is largely dictated by old habits… and by our agendas and tools, which are often set with it as default duration. Did you know that most calendar tools allow you to change this setting? Google Calendar’s little-known “speedy meetings” reduces default time to 50 minutes, and work wonders.
Total time spent in meeting proves we attend too many
14 hours, that’s how much time we spend on meetings on an average week. This means we spend 2 hours and 50 minutes in meetings every working day - at least Solid users do.
That’s 1/3rd of a 40-hour workweek. If we were to pack all of these appointments in one same meta-meeting starting on Monday morning, we’d only get out of the meeting room after lunch on Tuesday…
Extend that to a full year (50 workweeks), and we’d be averaging 29 days in meeting rooms a year! …A full month of February on its good years
You can also see it that way: We’re averaging close to 3 meetings a day. Meaning that on an 8-hour day, we have to interrupt what we’re doing 1 to 3 times. Many successful entrepreneurs prefer to bulk their meetings to get them out of the way at once. How are you supposed to do it with so many sessions to attend?
Punctuality - Solid leads to shorter meetings
We’re more prone to start a meeting late than early. Meetings that started late, did so with an 18 minutes delay on average, but meetings that started early only did so by 7 minutes. This tendency to be late also translates to the meetings’ end time. Indeed, meetings that end later than the expected time, do so by an additional 28 minutes.
Meetings prepared and managed with Solid are 12 minutes shorter than others. When crunching the data from all the userbase, that’s what it comes down to. Solid meetings are less likely to go into overtime thanks to the timer. They’re also better prepared, making them more to-the-point and avoiding stale conversations.
Check out your own stats and unlock your potential
Aside from helping you prepare and manage your meetings, Solid analyzes your time spent in them. At a glance, you’ll know where you’re good and where you could improve. Using our data, you’ll be able to grow your team to run better, more efficient and time-focused meetings. Here’s the information you should keep an eye on:
- Am I running too many meetings? Maybe you don’t need to attend all of them
- Am I spending too much time in meetings? Maybe you could shorten them thanks to better focus
- When am I meeting? Maybe changing the timeslots will improve efficiency
- How many people attend my meetings? Maybe not everyone should be included
- Am I starting and finishing on time? Maybe you could introduce stricter rules for punctuality
Learn about your own meeting habits and that of your teammates thanks to Solid.