No matter what your job is, you probably spend more time than you’d like in meetings. We held a poll before the pandemic, when most work was still in-person, and 36% of respondents had one to three meetings a week, while 28% had four to six meetings weekly. Twelve percent attended more than 10 meetings. And out of those polled, 52% said a majority of those meetings could have been accomplished by email.

The pandemic changed the way we work, which led to an even further increase to the amount of time we spend in meetings. As reported by TechRadar, Reclaim.ai, an intelligent productivity and time blocking app for Google Calendar, sampled data and held a poll, ultimately finding that workers now spend around 25% more time in meetings than they did before the pandemic.

If you’re suffering from meeting burnout, it might be worth discussing with your boss. Here are a few ways to cut down on the time you spend in meetings.

1. Analyze Your Meeting Data

Before you talk to your boss about getting rid of the of the more extraneous meetings, you’ll need to discover what those meetings are. The best way to do that is to make a list of all the meetings you take part in and analyze the data. Which meetings absolutely need to take place? Which ones are important for others, but not necessary for you to attend? Could some be cut in time or be better solved by an email or message? Once you’ve found the answers to those questions you’ll be better positioned to talk to your boss about the subject.

2. Optimize Meeting Time

Now that you’ve discovered which meetings are absolutely vital, how can you make sure your time in those meetings is well spent? By being prepared and having an agenda set ahead of time. This is easy to control if you’re the one in charge of the meeting. You can plan out the meeting and send everyone agenda prior to meeting. But if you’re not the one in charge, you can only suggest to the meeting organizer that agendas go out prior to meeting. A little bit of organization can go a long way.

3. Ask for Breaks

Finally, even if we’re using technology more and more to hold meetings, that doesn’t mean we’re robots. It’s easy to schedule meetings back to back when you can switch meetings with the click of a button, but you still need mental breaks to refresh and change subjects. Ask your boss for at least 30 minutes in between meetings.

Meetings can be tough, especially when they’re remote. But if you focus on having fewer, but more impactful meetings, you can really supercharge your work productivity.

Do you like remote meetings? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments section below!