Meetings were meant to fuel collaboration, but for many of us, they’ve become a time sink.
With calendars packed and productivity slipping, it’s time to ask: Are meetings actually moving work forward, or just getting in the way?
Our latest research dives into the state of workplace meetings—uncovering how often they happen, how long they last, and the biggest struggles professionals face.
Here’s what we found.
Summarize this article for me please⏰ Key highlights
❗️63% of professionals attend at least 1 meeting per week—with 19% attending 8 or more
❗️25% of meetings have 8 or more participants, making collaboration challenging
❗️47% of meetings last 45+ minutes, contributing to fatigue and lost productivity
❗️34% of workers say the biggest issue is a lack of a clear agenda, leading to wasted time
❗️Nearly 30% of meetings could be replaced with asynchronous work, yet teams still rely on real-time discussions
TL;DR? Meetings are a constant, but their value isn’t always evident. Let’s break down the data.
🧠 Curious about how we arrived at our results? Read about how we run opt-in surveys on the ClickUp blog.
Summarize this article for me please📅 How many meetings do we attend on average?
While a huge majority of professionals attend between 1-3 meetings per week, nearly 40% sit in 4 or more.
A surprising 19% find themselves in 8 or more meetings weekly—a major time investment that begs the question: are all these meetings truly necessary?
Summarize this article for me please👥 The size of meetings matters
Smaller meetings tend to be more effective, yet about 25% of all meetings include 8 or more participants.
While nearly half of meetings involve just one to three participants, many teams still struggle with overstuffed meetings that make collaboration inefficient.
Summarize this article for me please⏳ Meetings that drag on
More than half of all meetings run 45 minutes or longer, with 20% lasting at least an hour.
While some discussions require deeper conversations, lengthy meetings often contribute to fatigue rather than productivity. Only a small percentage of meetings (12%) wrap up in 15 minutes, suggesting that most meetings could be streamlined for efficiency.
Summarize this article for me please⚠️ The biggest meeting struggles
The most common complaint among professionals is the lack of a clear agenda, with 34% citing it as their top frustration.
Without an outlined purpose, meetings can quickly become unfocused and unproductive. Lack of follow-through is another major issue, with over a quarter of respondents noting that meetings often end without concrete action items. These inefficiencies add up, creating wasted time across entire teams.
Summarize this article for me please🔄 Which meetings could be async instead?
About 30% of respondents believe that daily standups and weekly update meetings could be handled asynchronously.
Many teams recognize that not all meetings require real-time discussions. Project meetings, one-on-ones, and even client meetings could benefit from async formats, reducing unnecessary interruptions and giving teams more time for deep work.
Summarize this article for me please📝 How are teams taking notes?
Despite the rise of digital tools, nearly 50% of professionals still rely on handwritten notes during meetings.
Without a structured approach to documentation, key decisions and action items risk being forgotten. While some prefer digital notepads, only a small percentage of survey respondents (12%) use AI-powered note-takers to automate the process. At the same time, 12% of survey respondents admit they don’t take notes, raising concerns about information retention and follow-through after meetings.
Summarize this article for me please4 Ways to Make Meetings More Effective
Meetings have been broken for a while—too many, too long, and often unnecessary. Here’s how organizations can reclaim productivity and create a culture of focused, efficient work.
✅ No agenda, no meeting: If a meeting doesn’t have a clear agenda, it shouldn’t happen. Every meeting must have a purpose, specific discussion points, and desired outcomes. Share this in advance so participants can come prepared—otherwise, it’s just a time-waster
✅ Keep it lean: More people in the room don’t mean better decisions. Only involve those who are critical to the discussion. For everyone else, a summary or recording will do
✅ Default to async: Before scheduling a meeting, ask: Can this be handled via a shared document, voice note, or project management tool? If the answer is yes, skip the meeting. Asynchronous updates respect everyone’s focus time while keeping work moving forward
✅ Let AI handle the admin: Use AI-powered assistants to automate note-taking, summarize key points, and track action items. This ensures accountability and eliminates the need for follow-up meetings just to clarify what was discussed
By eliminating unnecessary meetings and making the essential ones more efficient, teams can reclaim their time for deep, meaningful work.
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow can ClickUp Help?
Work is broken. Meetings happen in one tool, follow-ups in another, and action items get lost in the shuffle—leading to chaos, confusion, and wasted time. This is Work Sprawl in action, and it leads to endless meetings because no one can find “that SOP Cark built in 2024.”
As the world’s first Converged AI Workspace, ClickUp fixes this by bringing meetings, action items, and async updates into one seamless workflow.
🏁 Better notes and even better follow-ups
Never lose track of key decisions or next steps. ClickUp AI Notetaker automatically generates meeting summaries, highlights key takeaways, and calls out action items. Then ClickUp Brain helps generate follow-up tasks and tags the right person—ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
🏁 Fewer meetings, smoother discussions
Turn conversations into action items without scheduling another call. ClickUp’s Assigned Comments let you create and assign tasks directly from comment threads, documents, ClickUp Chat, and more, keeping projects moving forward without unnecessary check-ins.
🏁 Async but integrated
Skip status meetings and send async video updates instead. ClickUp Clips lets you record and share screen and voice messages, making it easy to align teams without disrupting focus time. Its features, like transcription (powered by ClickUp Brain) and timestamps, add clarity by turning recordings into searchable text and allowing teammates to jump to key moments—making updates more accessible and efficient!
By centralizing meetings, follow-ups, and async communication, ClickUp eliminates the chaos—so teams can spend less time talking and more time getting things done.
🤖 Tell your AI coworker to assign next steps, make a plan, and share updates
Share your meeting notes from ClickUp’s Notetaker with your Super Agent, and get it to build out a complete follow-through plan. It can devise the plan, create documentation, tag the right people, set deadlines, and more!
It’s super easy to get started! 👇🏼
Summarize this article for me please🚀 End Meeting Inefficiency Today
Want to reduce unnecessary meetings and improve productivity? Start by adopting async collaboration, streamlining agendas, and leveraging AI-driven tools. With a few small shifts, your team can break free from meeting overload and focus on meaningful work.
Try ClickUp for free and spend more time doing things that spark joy!
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