The 15-Minute Meeting Audit: Reclaiming Your Executive Calendar

How can an executive effectively audit and reduce unnecessary meetings?

Mindless recurring meetings are a primary driver of corporate burnout and late-night catch-up work. Executives can instantly reclaim hours of productivity by performing a quarterly "Meeting Audit"—ruthlessly converting 60-minute updates into 30-minute deep-dives and transitioning video calls into audio-only conversations.

“Mark, I’m in meetings all day, so I finally have a chance to work at night.”

My heart sinks every time I hear this from a colleague.

Meetings are a necessity in the public relations profession. They’re also a potentially significant time sink that, when not micromanaged, can impact our well-being.

The meetings we participate in should be prescriptive. Attendees should feel like it was a valuable use of their time, decisions made, and clear actions taken.

Too often, we default to scheduling a meeting. And yet, how many times have we heard, “That meeting could have been an email?”

As I was writing this column, I spoke with an executive who told me about the impact of frequent and unnecessary late-night meetings they used to participate in and the permanent effect it took on their personal life.

Meetings should not be playing such a role!

With some work, I think we can make a long-lasting impact on our personal lives and careers.

As we head into the fall, this is a great time to take 15 minutes to make a list of all your recurring meetings. These can be daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly meetings of all facets: 1:1s, team, partner, and client.

As you assess these meetings, ask yourself:

- Do I understand the purpose of these meetings?

- How often are these meetings moved or canceled?

- What is my role in these meetings? If I’m running these meetings, are the right people in the sessions? If I’m not running these meetings, what’s the level of value in participating?

- Is the length of these meetings appropriate?

- Do these need to be on camera, or can they be audio-only?

- Is the style of these meetings valuable? If I have several “status” meetings, should I evolve these meetings to focus less on project status – which can be communicated through software - and more on decision making?

- What is the value of the 1:1 meetings I have with my manager and those I’m managing? Am I discussing topics that better my/their relationship and career, or are they project status conversations?

I conducted my audit recently and noticed I have defaulted to too many 60-minute meetings for introductory and networking calls. I’ve adjusted these to 30-minute video calls for initial meetings, with audio calls for subsequent follow-ups.

This 15-minute exercise can save you hours to exercise, meal prep, or spend time with friends and family!

Consider conducting a meeting audit every quarter. Set a calendar reminder to rerun this in November to prepare you for a busy holiday season.

On a related note, there are times when you might be thinking, “This email thread is too confusing; let’s get on the phone!” If after three attempts to clarify a conversation topic are unsuccessful, I encourage you to pick up the phone and discuss the issue.

I look forward to hearing from you about the adjustments you’ve made and the impact on your life.