alt Hacker NewsA tweet I saw a few days ago: "This meeting could have been an email. In fact, it was. But no one replied. That's why it's a meeting now."
What bothers me most about meetings is their duration. There's no need to schedule hour-long meetings.
Replies
SoftTalker • today at 4:19 PM
It's a joke, but taking it at face value, many informational emails are not written in a way that suggests a reply is wanted or necessary, in as much as many meetings are just something you sit through as a listener and not as an active participant.
If an email presents some new plan or policy as a "done deal" then what is the point of spending time replying to it?
I firmly believe 20 minutes is the optimal amount of time to meet, introduce a problem and evidence, and make a decision that allows all parties to move forward aligned.
I suspect office work defaulted to 30 minute calls because of TV/Radio broadcasts in the early 20th century, but I haven't researched this theory further.