Summary

The article satirically outlines a guide for maximizing time wastage in meetings through inefficient practices.

Abstract

The provided content humorously presents a five-step guide on how to make meetings as unproductive as possible. It suggests scheduling numerous long meetings without clear agendas, inviting every possible participant, allowing conversations to stray off-topic, and concluding without any actionable resolutions. The author, Kat Tan, uses this tongue-in-cheek approach to highlight common meeting inefficiencies in a workplace setting, particularly targeting the excessive number of meetings, poor time management, and lack of clear objectives and outcomes.

Opinions

The author expresses frustration with the overabundance of meetings and the inefficiency they can introduce into the workday.
Inviting unnecessary participants to meetings is seen as a way to waste collective time and resources.
The lack of a clear agenda is criticized as a method that leads to unproductive and confusing meetings.
The practice of scheduling meetings for topics that could be resolved through email or messaging is ridiculed as a time-wasting tactic.
The article suggests that holding meetings without concrete resolutions or clear next steps is counterproductive and likely to result in additional meetings.
The author implies that not all meetings are necessary or beneficial, and that some could be replaced with more efficient forms of communication.
The sarcastic tone indicates the author's belief that many workplace meetings are poorly managed and a drain on productivity.

How to Waste as Much Time as Humanly Possible in Meetings

A step-by-step guide for anyone with coworkers

* Disclaimer: This is definitely not a guide on how to run efficient meetings. You’ll have to figure that one out on your own.

Dear coworkers, managers, and direct reports,

I am salty. The other day, I opened my calendar and found there to be simply too much empty space.

What am I to do with all that extra time? Spend time actually focusing? Spend more time with friends and family?

Unacceptable.

We all know someone who gets things done too efficiently. Why spend only 4 hours a day working when you could spend a whole 8 hours or more?

So, over the last 5+ years working as a software engineer, I’ve been taking notes from my most inefficient colleagues.

By the end of this guide, you will be a meeting-scheduling wizard.

—

Step 1: Schedule a long meeting, or five

We don’t have enough meetings on our calendars. I want my day to be eight straight hours of back-to-back meetings. If there’s time for a bathroom break, you’re doing it wrong.

When in doubt, schedule a meeting.

If the topic could be answered via an email or a message, schedule a meeting. Don’t waste your opportunity to drag a minutes-long interaction out by half an hour or more.

If there’s only 30 minutes of actual content, make it 60 minutes. Monopolize everyone’s time, just in case.

We don’t want to encourage people to be concise or accidentally set a time limit.

If you aren’t sure if the topic is important enough to require a meeting, schedule a meeting.

Step 2: Invite everyone and their neighbor

Be considerate of your teammates and make sure nobody misses the context.

When in doubt, invite them all.

The specific audience for this meeting should be everyone. We don’t want to make anyone feel left out. Make attendance required rather than optional so that people have no choice whether they attend the meeting or not.

Get good at basic math.

30 minutes x 15 people = 450 total minutes = 7.5 hours wasted

What you have to say is incredibly important. More important than anything else anyone could be doing instead. Make sure everyone has the opportunity to be blessed by your genius.

Be 100% unintentional when adding people to meetings.

Step 3: Go into the meeting with no agenda

Agendas are too much work. Go into the meeting blind and just wing it. Let your creativity and sparks of innovation shine.

Make sure you are totally unclear on the purpose of the meeting.

This lets you keep your options wide open, like that one guy who sort of tried to date me in high school. This way, you can use the meeting to do anything and everything. Even better if nobody knows who is even running it.

Wildly confuse your attendees.

Ask random questions throughout the meeting as they come up. This is more comprehensive than a written list of questions.
Talk in circles because you decided not to organize your thoughts beforehand. This will allow you to sporadically repeat the same points throughout the meeting. For emphasis.
Wave your hands continuously to be super clear about the diagrams you didn’t include. Visual cues are key.
It’s not like it would be helpful if everyone could refer to the same document, or pre-read it to save time.

Step 4: Let the conversation derail

If you got here, you probably executed Step 3 at least half-decently. Excellent job.

Next, let every discussion evolve into a sub-discussion. Even better if these end up involving only two people in the meeting. Aim to maximize time spent on these 1–1 sub-discussions. Let the other 13 people in the meeting stare blankly while they debate.

If you take those discussions offline to save time, you’re doing it wrong.

Talk over other people constantly to get your thoughts in. Take plenty of time to speak your mind while you have the stage. Ignore any raised hands and don’t let anyone tell you you might be misunderstanding.

Listening is for the weak.

The goal is not to cover everything planned. The goal is to cover as many random tangential topics as possible.

Step 5: End the meeting with no concrete resolutions

There’s no need to write down any answers to the questions asked. Everyone will remember. If someone is out sick that day, someone can schedule another meeting to update them!

Don’t clarify any next steps either. We want maximum confusion about who is doing what and by when.

Most likely, you’ll have to schedule a follow-up meeting because you didn’t actually accomplish anything. Great work.

Start back at Step 1 and re-invite the same fifteen people. Bonus points if you need to include more stakeholders next time.

—

Happy meeting scheduling! I hope your calendars are as full as your hearts.

See every single one of you at the next meeting,

Kat

If you made it this far, thanks Brandon Springer for the inspiration to be a little unhinged this time. Go check out his (sometimes very unhinged) work. You have been warned.

Thanks for reading! Comment your thoughts — I’d love to hear your story. Check out my other articles here.