Too many meetings leaving no time to actually get work done?

[teddyeddie]

Does anyone else have a ridiculous number of meetings in their job which stops them actually doing any work and meeting deadlines?

For example, the last few days I have had back to back meetings 9-5 and a 15 minute lunch!! I work 10 hour days over 4 days. I’m not even getting a decent break.

It’s just meeting after meeting - most organised by our line manager who is obsessed with meetings (that could be just an email ).

NHS.

Oh hell no, I would not stand for this. As woman in a dominated industry, I have been coached to politely refuse to take minutes or make tea/coffee even when I am the most junior person in the room. It’s never done me any harm, in fact it’s usually well received.

Have you ever asked him why he doesn’t ask your male colleagues to take minutes?

Yep, local authority, fairly low grade, we have meetings about allocated tasks, then another meeting about that meeting, then yet another meeting to talk about that meeting !

I had this in a previous job. For about a month, I religiously recorded the time I spent doing whatever I was doing every single day. The final stats showed that an inordinate amount of time was spent on pointless internal meetings and that it was forcing me to go well over my hours, often at home, to get the work done. I very simply explained that I could no longer do the additional hours (I had a 1 year old who I was missing time with) and something had to give. It worked and the number of internal meetings was really reduced.

In your shoes I would also point out that it was not my role to take notes and ask that the notes either be done by AI or the group attending take it in turns. You might find you are asked to attend fewer meetings when you are not the default note taker. But what a sexist pig your boss is. Unacceptable.

Stop.

Immediately. Nothing will change while you keep the status quo.

Document everything and send a round up email every single day before you log off of your outstanding work with your actual work time you had in the day.

You need to make it his problem to solve. If you keep facilating it he will keep allowing you too.

The business disease of C21. A wonderful way to increase your workforce to carry the actual workload though.

You are being extremely passive about this, which I guess came about piece by piece if you were new. But now is the time to put some of the tips in this thread into action. I favour the 'fear you are building to an official complaint' language. when he gives you a task to do for the next day, then asks you to come to meetings, PUT IN AN EMAIL something like

1. you asked that I do x which will take y hours to complete, by tomorrow
2. you have asked that I attend y hours of meetings instead.

Please be aware that if I attend these meetings as requested the work will not be achieved

Similarly, write a formal email stating you cannot attend meetings you do not need to, just to take notes for him, as you have too much work, and suggest he uses co pilot instead.
everything he asks, get it in writing. he'll panic you're about to make a complaint.

however the single most important things are 1)document everything and 2) refuse to do any work unpaid out of hours. poor managers get away with it because their staff cover up for them, which is essentially what you are doing here.

Meetings about work, how to manage workload, how to work more efficiently etc are mostly completely pointless. This on top of endless emails, teams messages and ’can we just jump on a quick call’ mean that like you OP, many people don’t have time in their working day to get things done. This means that they end up having to work late or at weekends to keep on top of things. Just allow people the uninterrupted time to actually get on with the job.

Decline the o es you don't need to be at. Be firm. Say "what should I deprioritise to attend this?)
Block your calendar (prep first x deadline, prep for y meeting, etc)

Be ruthless with your time.

How do they make you?

Stop doing unpaid work.
If they stand over you? Ask them who us going to do what you are cancelling.

Don't do the minutes "I did the last one, Dave you do it today". Be firm.

It’s absolute madness when meetings are literally just status updates that could have been a quick message. I completely feel your pain with those back-to-back schedules.

I had to start actively blocking out 'focus time' in my calendar so nobody could book me, and pushing back on invites that didn't have a clear agenda.

For the ones I actually have to attend, I've been using Sugarbug just to pull all the background info from my chats and docs beforehand. It saves me from having to sit through 20 minutes of people 'catching up' at the start of every call.

Protect your lunch break though, seriously. You'll burn out so fast working 10-hour days with only 15 minutes of downtime.