3 Best PM Software to Reduce Meeting Overload

What’s that one thing stopping you from being productive?

If you say meetings, you aren’t alone.

As per the Stop the Meeting Madness survey, 83% of respondents reported meetings on their calendar to be unproductive. US professionals rate meetings as the #1 productivity killer.

Whether you’re a knowledge worker, team lead, project manager, or a founder, we can all agree unanimously that meetings are grossly overused.

In this article, we show you the best project management software to reduce meeting overload.

Use these project management software solutions to eliminate unnecessary meetings related to status updates, approvals, and other check-ins, and replace them with synchronous collaboration.

Best PM Software to Reduce Meeting Overload | ClickUp

At a Glance: The Best PM Software to Reduce Meeting Overload

Let’s look at the top project management software to avoid meeting fatigue. We’ve tried and tested them to save you the groundwork.

Tool name	Best For	Key Features	Pricing*
ClickUp	All-in-one AI-powered project management and collaboration	Chat, Clips, Docs, ClickUp Brain (AI notetaker, contextual AI), SyncUps	Free forever; Customizations available for enterprises
Notion	Flexible documentation and lightweight project tracking	Notion AI, wikis, docs, custom views, pre-built templates	Free; Paid plans start at $12/month per user
Asana	Task management and workload management	AI studio, AI teammates, workload management, Goals, project progress tracking	Free; Paid plans start at $13.49/month per user

*Please check the tool’s website for the latest pricing

👀 Did You Know? Atlassian’s study on meeting overload found 76% of respondents to be drained on days with a lot of meetings. Over 50% work overtime a few days a week because too many meetings prevent them from completing their work during the day.

How to Choose the Right Project Management Tool to Cut Meeting Overload

The goal is simple. To choose a workplace communication tool that keeps team members aligned without scheduling excessive formal meetings.

So, what should you look for in a project management software that cuts down meeting overload? Key features we find helpful are:

Supports asynchronous communication: Enables detailed task comments, threads, @mentions, screen recordings, and contextual discussions from team members to replace synchronous meetings for group communication
Provides AI-powered meeting summaries and action extraction: Transcribes meetings, summarizes key points, extracts action items, and assigns tasks automatically. Fewer people need to attend back-to-back meetings, and it promotes the concept of asynchronous meetings
Offers shared workspaces and doc collaboration: Centralizes documents, tasks, and decisions. You can review information ahead of time and avoid “alignment meetings”
Integrates with your tech stack: Syncs with Zoom/Teams/Google Calendar so users can schedule meetings even from their project management software
Provides calendar intelligence: Suggests shorter meeting durations, async alternatives to replace frequent meetings, or optimal times to avoid calendar clutter
Provides automated reminders, nudges, and follow-ups: Uses notifications, AI assistants, and automation triggers to reduce calendar-based check-ins or update calls to boost productivity

👀 Did You Know? Considering the number of meetings an employee could skip, there’s a potential wasted investment of over $25,000 per employee per year. This number is considerably higher for managers with 4+ direct reports.

The Best Project Management Software to Reduce Meeting Overload

Here are the best project management tools to help you reduce unnecessary meetings.

How we review software at ClickUp

Our editorial team follows a transparent, research-backed, and vendor-neutral process, so you can trust that our recommendations are based on real product value.

Here’s a detailed rundown of how we review software at ClickUp.

1. ClickUp (Best all-in-one platform for project management and collaboration)

First on the list is the in-house favorite: ClickUp.

ClickUp home page — Monitor project updates, manage workflows, and collaborate with the team, all from your ClickUp Workspace

Meetings become necessary when documentation and knowledge are scattered across disconnected tools and platforms. ClickUp, the everything app for work, brings all your work and business communication under one roof, easing both real-time and asynchronous collaboration.

Here’s how ClickUp for Remote Teams helps you reduce meeting overload.

Unify communication and action with ClickUp Chat and ClickUp Docs

Team collaboration is just easier with ClickUp’s Docs and Chat, which automatically link tasks, docs, and conversations together. This means teams always have full context of the work at hand, and aren’t jumping between screens just to communicate.

Feedback happens in real time with comments and @mentions, so you don’t need review calls either.

Here’s what you can do with ClickUp Chat to deal with the problem of too many meetings:

Keep everyone in the loop async: Share important announcements, updates, or discussions as Posts so your team stays informed at their own pace—no pressure to respond right away
Make action items impossible to miss: Instantly turn any comment into a trackable task with FollowUps, ensuring everyone knows their deliverables and deadlines without needing meetings
Skip unnecessary follow-up meetings: Make quick audio and video calls with SyncUps, which can be recorded and accessed in the Clips Hub, with transcripts and summaries that tie directly to tasks and projects

ClickUp Docs are living documents tied to your projects. You can embed task lists, assign comments, let coworkers edit a doc simultaneously, and track progress without ever leaving the document. As updates happen, you see them in real time.

Pre-built templates cut effort, and a searchable Docs Hub helps you find related documents instantly.

Record videos for async updates with ClickUp Clips

When explaining a process or debugging an issue, a short video with ClickUp Clips works so much better than a meeting.

Capture your screen, voice, or webcam from anywhere you’re working, annotate as you go, and instantly share the recording as a comment or task link.

For instance, if a team lead needs to explain a tricky workflow, they can just record a short clip, upload it to the relevant task, and allow teammates to watch it at their convenience. No need for a 20-minute “quick call.”

Let ClickUp Brain handle the follow-ups and context

ClickUp Brain, the platform’s built-in AI assistant, scans tasks, docs, and conversations to surface relevant context, suggest actions, and generate summaries instantly. It even recognizes dependencies and blockers and automatically recommends next steps.

That means fewer syncs for updates and scheduling meetings.

For example, say your product manager asks in Chat, “Where do we stand on the mobile app redesign?”

ClickUp Brain instantly summarizes the project’s status—completed designs, pending feedback, and blockers—pulling information from linked tasks and docs. The PM gets an instant, AI-generated update, and the team skips yet another 30-minute sync.

Try ClickUp Brain for project updates

Automate meeting note-taking with ClickUp AI Notetaker

If you can’t skip a meeting, at least skip the note-taking. The ClickUp AI Notetaker joins your Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams calls automatically, transcribes everything in real time (complete with clickable timestamps), and turns key takeaways into actionable tasks.

Try ClickUp’s AI notetaker

It links those notes directly to your workspace. Follow-ups, decisions, and blockers are not lost in chat history or paper notes.

This video shows you ClickUp AI Notetaker’s superpowers 👇

Let AI agents do the heavy-lifting for you

ClickUp’s AI Agents live inside your workspace, continuously monitoring projects, tasks, and dependencies to keep everything moving.

They handle routine updates, such as daily and weekly reports, AI-generated stand-ups, and automated progress summaries, saving you from unnecessary discussions. Agents can even flag risks, reassign workloads, or trigger follow-ups when they detect delays in real time.

ClickUp’s Autopilot Agents : PM Software to Reduce Meeting Overload — Get automated daily and weekly updates and AI standups to reduce meeting overload with ClickUp’s AI Agents

ClickUp best features

Stay organized across calendars: Organize all your tasks, events, and meetings in the smart ClickUp Calendar that auto-syncs with Google and Outlook
Turn feedback into action instantly: Use ClickUp Assign Comments to add comments and convert them to tasks. Once the tasks are complete, you can resolve these comments
Eliminate coordination chaos: Let ClickUp Task Dependencies determine the order of tasks based on their dependencies and in line with your priorities
Visualize progress in real time: Track progress, dependencies, workloads, and roadblockers in one place with ClickUp Dashboards
Connect with third-party tools: Centralize updates and reduce context switching between tools like Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and hundreds of other apps using ClickUp Integrations
Pre-built templates: Plug-and-play your meeting agenda and related information and details into templates such as ClickUp’s Meeting Minutes Template, ClickUp’s Agenda Template, etc

ClickUp limitations

The extensive suite of features may be overwhelming for a new user

ClickUp pricing

free forever

Best for individual users

Free Free

Key Features:

60MB Storage

Unlimited Tasks

Unlimited Free Plan Members

unlimited

Best for small teams

$7 $10

per user per month

Everything in Free +

Unlimited Storage

Unlimited Folders and Spaces

Unlimited Integrations

ClickUp ratings and reviews

G2: 4.7/5 (10,500+ reviews)
Capterra: 4.6/5 (4,500+ reviews)

What are real-life users saying about ClickUp?

A G2 user review sums up the ClickUp benefits:

What I like best about ClickUp is how customizable and flexible it is. I can set it up exactly how I want, whether that’s using simple task lists or building out detailed workflows with automations, dependencies, and dashboards. It keeps everything in one place—projects, docs, communication, and even time tracking—so I don’t need to jump between multiple tools…

📮 ClickUp Insight: ClickUp’s meeting effectiveness survey data suggests that nearly half of all meetings (46%) involve just 1-3 participants. While smaller meetings may be more focused, efficient communication methods can help you cut down on excessive, unnecessary meetings.

Assigned Comments in ClickUp Tasks let you add context directly within tasks, share quick audio messages, or record video updates with ClickUp Clips—helping teams save valuable time while ensuring important discussions still occur—just without the time drain!

💫 Real Results: Teams like Trinetrix are experiencing a 50% reduction in unnecessary conversations and meetings with ClickUp

Replace meetings with async workflows using ClickUp

📚 Read More: How Asynchronous Work Changes Collaboration

2. Notion (Best for flexible documentation and lightweight project tracking)

Notion is an all-in-one digital workspace used by individuals and teams. It combines note-taking, project management, and knowledge management.

It helps reduce meeting frequency as a PM tool in several ways, starting with shared context through team wikis.

For a single source of truth, templates like Company Wiki and Team Workspace are helpful. New members can refer to these documents to know about the company’s meeting processes and meeting-free days.

The Kanban Board helps visualize workflows in real time, so everyone can see who’s doing what and what’s next. Managers can review progress asynchronously and only schedule syncs for blockers.

If you do have to attend a meeting, Notion AI transcribes meeting notes, generates actionable summaries, and gives a searchable meeting history. It can also add context to meeting notes, draft recaps, or answer “why was this decision made?” instantly from your docs to eliminate back-and-forth meetings.

Notion best features

Create custom AI agents for handling specific projects, tasks, or subtasks
Write project summaries, meeting follow-ups, and create customized access to your confidential documents with Notion AI
Toggle between multiple AI models with in-built ChatGPT and Claude Sonet 4 AI assistants
Break down complex projects by creating ‘hierarchies’ with pages, sub-pages, tasks, and subtasks
Link databases for tasks, notes, and goals to automatically create relationships between information

Notion limitations

Unlike tools with automated status reporting or built-in nudges, Notion relies heavily on manual upkeep. So if a team member stops documenting decisions or updating tasks, shared context collapses fast

Notion pricing

Free
Plus: $12/month per user
Business: $24/month per user
Enterprise: Custom pricing

Notion ratings and reviews

G2: 4.6/5 (8,000+ reviews)
Capterra: 4.6/5 (4,000+ reviews)

What are real-life users saying about Notion?

Here’s what a G2 reviewer had to say about Notion:

I like that Notion combines notes, tasks, and collaboration in one place, so I don’t have to jump between different tools. The AI features are very handy for summarizing meeting notes, drafting content, and rephrasing text quickly. It saves time and helps keep my workspace more organized…

📚 Read More: Notion vs. ClickUp: the Best Docs Tool

👀 Did You Know? Many of us today have faced meeting recovery syndrome.

Meetings often require intense focus, multitasking, and social interactions. They engage the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for functions such as planning and decision-making.

Overloading it leads to cognitive fatigue, which manifests as decreased concentration and impaired critical thinking after the meeting ends. Downtime is needed for the brain to recover and restore its cognitive resources after having constant meetings.

⭐ Bonus: Even the most asynchronous teams need to share quick ideas or updates—and that’s where ClickUp Brain MAX’s Talk-to-Text shines.

Instead of scheduling a quick sync just to explain something, you can speak your thoughts aloud, and Brain Max instantly converts them into structured, editable text inside tasks or docs.

It captures tone, intent, and key context, so your “mini-meetings” happen asynchronously. Whether it’s summarizing a voice note into action items or drafting a follow-up doc from a quick thought, Talk-to-Text helps you communicate fast without adding another slot to the calendar.

3. Asana (Best for structured task management and team coordination)

Asana : PM Software to Reduce Meeting Overload — via Asana

While Asana isn’t built with an AI notetaker, it helps reduce meeting overload in other ways.

As a workload and project management software, Asana creates shared clarity around priorities, ownership, and next steps—things that typically require sync calls to confirm.

Every project in Asana becomes a transparent workspace where tasks, owners, and deadlines are visible to everyone, so there’s no need to meet just to “check progress.” The My Tasks view and Timeline make dependencies and blockers obvious without requiring a verbal update.

Goals, Portfolios, and Workload dashboards in this workload management tool help managers track outcomes asynchronously, while comments, attachments, or Status Reports enable quick updates without requiring meetings.

To keep meetings more effective when they do happen, Asana provides Meeting Agenda and Post-Meeting Follow-Up templates to plan topics, assign owners, and turn discussions into actionable tasks.

With integrations like Slack, Google Calendar, and Zoom, updates and task changes sync automatically, keeping communication in context—the biggest workplace communication challenge. Instead of relying on formal meetings to align, Asana makes work alignment visible.

Asana best features

Let AI teammates give data-driven insights, take action, and deliver results with the full context of your work
Create custom no-code workflows and set rules with triggers and actions to automate routine processes
Connect company-wide goals with your daily work and see how every initiative furthers company objectives
Create long-term staffing plans and use the workload view to see who is under- or over-burdened for optimal capacity planning
Use the AI studio to design custom workflows for request tracking, campaign management, and more

Asana limitations

Lacks native async video, voice messaging, and an AI tool for meetings. You need to turn to Slack or email for context, leading to fragmented communication and extra sync calls

Asana pricing

Free
Starter: $13.49/month per user
Advanced: $30.49/month per user
Enterprise: Custom pricing
Enterprise+: Custom pricing

Asana ratings and reviews

G2: 4.4/5 (12,300+ reviews)
Capterra: 4.5/5 (13,500+ reviews)

What are real-life users saying about Asana?

Here’s what a G2 review says about Asana:

Asana is a powerful project and task management platform designed to help teams organize work, streamline communication, and improve overall productivity. It’s widely adopted across industries thanks to its intuitive design, versatile project views, and strong collaboration features.

Other notable mentions

Here are some other PM tools that help you reduce meeting overload in some way or the other and allow you to plan your workday better:

Basecamp: Replaces daily stand-ups with written check-ins and long-form message boards that keep everyone updated asynchronously. Its Automatic Check-ins feature prompts teammates to share progress or blockers. Centralized message threads and project hubs ensure fewer “what’s the status?” meetings
Slack: Channels organize conversations by topic or project, reducing the need for recurring syncs. Slack Canvas stores key docs and decisions in one place, while AI-powered summaries highlight what matters most. The Huddles feature gives you quick audio-only check-ins when a full meeting isn’t worth scheduling
Microsoft Teams: With Copilot, Teams automatically summarizes meeting notes, highlights next steps, and drafts follow-ups. Integrated scheduling tools prevent calendar overload, while shared channels and files keep communication asynchronous.
Google Workspace: Combines Docs, Sheets, and Chat into one async workflow. Gemini, Google’s built-in AI, drafts summaries, generates agendas, and flags action items. Shared calendars and commenting features make it easy to review updates without live syncs
Zoom: The AI Companion records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings so you can skip nonessential ones. Its Smart Chapters and Highlights turn recordings into searchable insights, making follow-up meetings unnecessary
Team O’Clock: Designed for agile teams, it automates daily stand-ups, sprint retrospectives, and team check-ins. Its Async Stand-up and Meeting Timer features keep sessions brief, structured, and often optional
Troop Messenger: Blends chat, file sharing, and task management into one workspace. AI-powered Smart Replies and Message Summaries help teammates stay aligned asynchronously. With integrated video and task tagging, discussions turn into deliverables without endless syncs

💡 Case in Point: Shopify decided to end the calendar clog by canceling all recurring meetings with three or more participants and instituting “No-Meeting Wednesdays,” eliminating roughly 12,000 meetings, equating to 36 years of collective meeting time.

If you want to advocate for no meeting days to improve your team’s productivity, here are the simplest steps to get started:

Start small: Begin with one day every two weeks. Once the team sees productivity gains, make it weekly
Set clear expectations: Communicate that “no meetings” means no internal syncs—urgent external calls can still happen
Use async updates instead: Replace those check-ins with ClickUp Clips, Notion updates, or Asana status reports
Make it cultural, not performative: Leadership has to model the behavior, resisting the urge to sneak in “quick chats”
Measure the impact: Track deliverables or deep-work hours before and after. Showing results helps sustain the policy

📚 Read More: Free Screen Recorder with No Watermarks

Why Reducing Meeting Overload Matters?

There’s enough and more research to prove the impact of meeting overload 👇

Meeting hangovers: Over 90% of employees report experiencing reduced focus, motivation, or productivity after attending ineffective meetings. Most of the day-to-day meetings can easily be emails, messages, or calls
Zoom fatigue: Prolonged video conferencing can lead to burnout, characterized by tiredness and stress. Such video meetings, if stretched over long periods, can also damage eyesight due to excessive exposure to screens
Mental and physical health effects: Excessive meetings lead to increased anxiety, stress, and decreased morale among employees. They also reduce mobility, affecting the physical health of the attendees
Boreout syndrome: Most employees are unable to complete meaningful work due to excessive meetings. This often leads to boreout syndrome, a psychological condition characterized by under-stimulation and dissatisfaction on the professional front
Employee dissatisfaction: Meeting overload can lead to disengagement and decreased job satisfaction. This may also prompt employees to quit their jobs or perform poorly, and bring about organizational challenges in your establishment

⚒️ Quick Hack: If meetings are inevitable, let AI help you. Here’s how to use AI for meeting notes:

Use integrated AI notetakers: Choose tools built into your workspace (like ClickUp Brain) so meeting notes and action items sync instantly with tasks
Record selectively: Have AI join recurring or strategy meetings, so you build searchable archives without cluttering your workspace
Tag and link your summaries: Connect AI-generated notes to project boards, docs, or dashboards for full meeting context in one place
Review, don’t rewrite: Let AI handle the heavy lifting—your job is to skim, approve, and delegate

This video shows you how to automate meeting notes with AI:

Tips to Reduce Meeting Fatigue Beyond Tools

No one ever said they loved meetings. But if you must have a meeting, stick to the following rules for meeting practices:

Establish a clear agenda: Before scheduling a meeting, you should know what it will cover. Because if there is no agenda, the meeting doesn’t need to happen
Share pre-work meeting notes beforehand: Meetings shouldn’t be spent reading each other’s work. To maximize the meeting time, share notes, analysis, or related work ahead of time
Cap meetings at 30 minutes: Research shows that cognitive fatigue sets in after 30-40 minutes in virtual stand-up meetings. Keeping sessions shorter and limited to those people important to the agenda of the meeting maintains engagement

In the words of Lisa Haneberg, the author of Don’t Let Meetings Rule!

Push back on meetings that do not make sense or are unproductive. Only book a meeting when you have an important business issue to discuss and you want or need input, approval, or agreement. Even then, resist the urge to invite everyone and their brother — don’t waste people’s time unnecessarily.

👀 Did You Know? Scholars highlight that meeting overload reduces ‘mind wandering’ time (spontaneous creative thinking). Jeff Bezos, Executive Chairman of Amazon, says, “I don’t keep to a strict schedule. My meetings are ‘messy’ to spark creativity and innovation. Mind-wandering is a secret weapon in my productivity.”

Reduce the Meeting Overload With ClickUp as Your Project Management Software

The meeting fatigue is real, but tools can help. Certain types of project management software reduce the need for meetings by improving team collaboration and communication.

We’ve seen how tools like Notion, Asana, and others can help to reduce meeting overload. But if you want to pick one, we recommend ClickUp.

ClickUp’s unified AI workspace is built for team collaboration. Features like Chat, Docs, and Clips make async communication effective, while ClickUp Brain and AI Agents replace sync calls with structured, AI-powered updates, decisions, and follow-ups.

Take the first step in eliminating meeting overload: sign up for a free ClickUp account today.

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Best Project Management Software to Reduce Meeting Overload

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