10 ways to refuse meetings

It’s 2022, and communicators are still struggling to shed useless meetings that drain time and energy.

Corey DuBrowa, VP of global communications at Google, shared how removing meetings from his calendar was a huge part of how he is recalibrating in the new year. He wrote on LinkedIn:

One thing I think most companies are *terrible* at is “stopping things that aren’t a priority anymore” — most companies seem to have an almost endless shelf life for work or projects that realistically should have been called months, if not years, ago. So two things I am doing this year to personally try to get at the heart of your question: 1) I am taking meetings OFF my calendar, they are energy and idea killers 2) deprioritizing things that really aren’t important. I’m sure some feelings will be hurt this year but I don’t have time in my life or in my work week for “pro forma” meetings and “somebody else’s priority” stuff. I want us (aka me) to take back our most valuable and precious commodity: our time. To think, to connect, to create.