Why Most Meetings Waste Time – And the Two Fixes Organisations Are Missing

The Sunday Times 12 April 2026 colour supplement article ‘Meetings take up more than a quarter of the week — are they pointless?’ is right about time-wasting meetings… But It Misses Two Critical Fixes.

The Sunday Times article highlights a familiar frustration: too many meetings, taking up too much time, with too little value.

The data is compelling - hours lost every week, rising meeting volumes, and widespread frustration with poorly run sessions. But while the article diagnoses the problem well, it misses two of the most practical and immediately actionable solutions.

Here's how you and your team stop wasting time in meetings:

1. Meetings Don’t Only Need to Be Shorter - They Need to Be Led

The real issue isn’t the existence of meetings. It’s the lack of structure and leadership within them. In many organisations, meetings:

• start without a clear purpose

• drift between topics

• overrun without decisions

• leave actions unclear

The fix is not radical. It’s disciplined.

Effective meetings require:

• A clear, timed agenda (with realistic durations per item)

• A defined outcome for each agenda point (decision, input, or update)

• Strong “conducting” by the meeting leader, guiding pace, focus and participation

• Visible actions and ownership before the meeting ends

When meetings are run this way, they become faster, sharper and far more valuable. In fact, most organisations don’t need fewer meetings, they need better-run meetings.

2. Parts of Meetings Shouldn’t Be Included

A more fundamental issue is what gets put into meetings in the first place.

Typical agendas are overloaded with:

• “catch-up” updates

• status reviews of recent activity

• early-stage discussions

• preliminary decisions involving only a few people

These are not meeting topics.They are coordination activities, and they can be handled far more efficiently elsewhere.

This is where Microsoft TEAMS becomes critical. Using well-structured Posts in TEAMS Channels, organisations can:

• Share updates asynchronously (no meeting required)

• Gather input and comments in one place

• Progress early-stage thinking without blocking diaries

• Involve only the relevant people

The result?

1. Meetings become shorter.

2. Fewer people need to attend.

3. Time is reserved for what meetings are actually for: decisions

The Missing Link: Ways of Working, Not More Tools

Most organisations already have the technology to fix this. The problem is they haven’t defined how to use it consistently. Without clear ways of working:

• Teams becomes just another messaging tool

• Meetings remain the default for everything

• Inefficiency simply shifts channels

This is why training matters, but not traditional “how to use the app” training.

Programmes like WorkingSm@rt focus on:

• How to move updates and collaboration into TEAMS Channels

• How to structure and run meetings for outcomes, not activity

• How to create consistent behaviours across teams

A Better Model for Meetings

When organisations modernise their ways of working:

Before the meeting

• Updates, input, and early thinking happen in TEAMS Channels

During the meeting

• Time is used for discussion, alignment, and decisions

After the meeting

• Actions are visible, owned, and tracked

The Bottom Line

The Sunday Times is right to call out the cost of time-wasting meetings. But the solution isn’t just fewer meetings or experimental policies like “no-meeting days”.

It’s simpler -and more powerful:

Redesign how meetings are prepared, run, and supported by modern collaboration tools.

Get that right, and organisations don’t just reduce meetings.They unlock faster decisions, clearer accountability, and significantly more productive time.

SEE PRODUCTIVITY COURSES

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About us > Priority Management is a worldwide training company with 55 offices in 15 countries. We have successfully trained more than two million graduates in Priority workshops. Our programs help companies and people be more effective and manage their workflow in and out of the office by providing tools, processes and discipline.

Simply put - A Better Way To Work! Clients range from Fortune 500 companies, small-to-medium businesses and government/military employees. Click Here to view all our courses.

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