2 min read
Meeting Charter
Ten principles for reclaiming the hours we hand to the calendar.
The average employee spends ten full working weeks a year in meetings. Most consider at least a third a waste of time. The remarkable thing isn't that this happens. It's that nobody stops it.
01. Change your default to no
The question isn't whether this meeting is useful. It's whether it's more useful than the uninterrupted time it replaces.
02. Write the memo instead
A well-written memo often eliminates the meeting entirely.
03. No agenda, no meeting
An invitation without an agenda is a request to give up your time with no indication of why. Decline it. One sentence stating the purpose and the decision required is enough. If you can't write that sentence, you're not ready.
04. Share it before, not at the start
Send materials in advance. People arrive with their thinking done. The meeting starts at discussion, not context. Reading belongs before the meeting, not inside it.
05. Default to async
Ask whether the job can be done without a meeting. A shared document. A recorded message. A chat thread with a deadline. Real-time conversation is one tool among several — not the automatic choice. Reserve the meeting for what only a meeting can do.
06. Invite fewer people
If someone doesn't need to speak, they don't need to attend. Broad invitations produce an audience, not a meeting. Invite only the people essential to the outcome. Tell everyone else what was decided.
07. Start on time. End early.
A late start rewards the tardy and penalises the punctual. Starting on time is the minimum. Ending early is the standard — the clearest signal that you respect the room more than the block you booked.
08. Be present or don't come
A meeting attended while clearing emails is not a meeting. It signals to everyone in the room that their time isn't worth your full attention. If you can't give it, decline it. If you're running a meeting people clearly aren't paying attention to, that's the real agenda item.
09. Ask before you record
People speak differently when they know they're being recorded. Important things go unsaid. Ask. Get consent. The meeting ends. The AI doesn't.
10. Leave with action or don't bother
What was decided. Who owns it. By when. If you can't answer all three, the meeting isn't over.
Meetings are where culture becomes visible. How you run them says more about what you value than any stated values ever will.