Most jobs come with a calendar full of meetings. Some are useful; many are not. The difference is rarely the topic. It is whether the person running the meeting understands what a meeting is for—and what it costs everyone in the room.
Which meetings are worth holding
Brainstorming sessions and decision meetings are where the value is. They need real-time back-and-forth, and they produce something concrete. Other meetings should be avoided when possible.
The cost adds up fast. A meeting that should take 30 minutes, with 100 people in the room, can stretch to 60 minutes when the host cannot control the pace. That is 3,000 minutes of human life gone.
Compared with email and other asynchronous communication, a meeting is synchronous, direct, and higher in information density. That makes it suitable for situations where people need to communicate their way to a specific goal. If a gathering has no clear purpose, it will usually turn into aimless chatter.
Keep the group small
A meeting works best with three to seven people. Fewer than that and there is little reason to meet. More than that and everyone starts talking past each other, which rarely produces a result.
Do the math. With seven people, five minutes of speaking time each already adds up to 35 minutes. Add the rest of the agenda and the meeting is likely to hit an hour. That one-hour mark matters because most people’s attention drops noticeably after it, and so does the quality of the discussion.
When a meeting gets too large, it stops being a meeting and becomes a one-way presentation. Participants cannot really take part or exchange ideas. With dozens or hundreds of people, it turns into a speech meant to make everyone feel aligned—a one-sided information dump. Being there in person is not much different from watching the slides afterward. That is a waste of life.
Before the meeting
A competent host prepares the basics: the room, the equipment, the flow, and the roles people need to play. The topic and agenda should go to everyone at least an hour in advance. Keep the brief short—ideally no more than one A4 page. If it takes pages and pages to explain why the meeting is needed, it probably should not be a meeting.
Pulling people together with no preparation and then letting one interruption after another eat the schedule is not just inefficient. It is shameful.
During the meeting
First, stop reading the slides. Everyone can read. If people wanted to listen to a slide deck being read aloud, they could do that on their own time. And please do not repeat the same point 3,456,789 times. That is not emphasis; it is a chant.
Most participants already have a basic idea of the topic when they arrive. What they need from the host is a deeper explanation of the purpose and the reasoning: Why are we doing this? What decision factors support this direction? After that, discuss, confirm, and move to action.
Some hosts complain that people do not read the topic beforehand. That is their problem. If someone cannot be bothered to understand the topic, there are only two possibilities: either the wrong person was invited, or that person should not be in the meeting at all.
Near the end, reconfirm what has been agreed. If possible, ask participants to sign off. The whole point of meeting face to face is to communicate and confirm while everyone is present.
After the meeting
Meeting notes are essential. Too many meetings end with no record, or with notes that only capture what was useful to one person. Then everyone walks away confused and has to reconstruct the discussion from the slides.
It is the 21st century. Use modern tools. One example is iFlytek Tingjian, a recording and photo app designed for meetings. Whether you are hosting or attending, it is worth using. It records audio, converts speech to text in real time, and supports photos. You can record and take pictures during the meeting, then generate meeting content and minutes in one click. You can also check details with AI assistance. Within a minute after the meeting, you can share the content and minutes, use them to define next steps and owners, send tasks through a task management system, and track execution.
Low-efficiency, low-value meetings are a steady tax on working life. Given the choice, many people would rather spend the time on their phones than listen to another round of nothing. Honestly—if that is what the meeting has become, let the world end.