The meeting default
When a question comes up, most teams reach for the calendar. "Let's grab 30 minutes" feels helpful and it's easy to say yes to. But each of those half hours has a price, and it's paid by everyone on the invite.
A 30-minute meeting with six people costs about $144 in salary if they earn $100,000 a year, and about $288 if they earn $200,000. Hold it every week and that's $7,500 to $15,000 a year for one recurring invite.
The cheapest meeting is the one you didn't need to hold. That's what we mean by a $0 meeting: the question still gets answered, it just happens in writing.
The three-question test
Before you book anything, ask:
- Can I say what I need to say in writing? Most updates, proposals and questions can.
- Do I need everyone's input at the same moment? Usually you need their input, not their simultaneous presence.
- Does this have to be decided today? If it can wait a day, it can go async.
If the first answer is yes and the other two are no, write it down instead. You've just run a $0 meeting.
One more check that works surprisingly well: if you can write the outcome of the meeting in a single sentence before it starts, you probably don't need the meeting. Send the sentence and ask people to reply if they disagree.
What to write instead
A meeting replacement only works if the message is easy to answer. A vague "thoughts?" in a busy channel gets ignored, and then someone books the meeting anyway. A good async message has four parts:
- The context. Two or three sentences on what's going on. Link to anything longer.
- The ask. Exactly what you need from each person: a decision, a review, a yes or no.
- The options. If there's a decision, lay out the choices and say which one you'd pick and why.
- The deadline. "Reply by 3pm Thursday. If I don't hear otherwise I'll go with option B."
That last line does most of the work. A default with a deadline turns silence into agreement, so the decision doesn't stall waiting for everyone to respond.
Common swaps
| Instead of | Try |
|---|---|
| A status meeting | A weekly written update in Slack or your project tool |
| A quick question meeting | A direct message, with a reasonable reply window |
| A decision meeting with clear options | A short doc with options, a recommendation and a deadline |
| An announcement meeting | A written note, or a short recorded video for anything that needs a demo |
| A review meeting | Comments on the document, then a call only for the points still open |
When a meeting is worth the money
Some things really do need people in a room, or on a call. Writing falls short when:
- People disagree and the disagreement is getting personal. Tone gets lost in text, and a long thread can make a conflict worse.
- You're exploring, not deciding. Early brainstorming works better when ideas can bounce around quickly.
- The decision is big and hard to undo. A reorg, a major hire, or a change of direction deserves a real conversation.
- Someone needs support. Bad news, feedback and anything personal should be said, not typed.
The aim isn't to get rid of meetings. It's to make each one earn its cost. When you do book one, give it an agenda, keep the invite list to the people who need to be there, and end with a written note of what was decided.
A worked example
Say a product manager needs to pick between two launch dates and wants input from engineering, design, marketing and support.
The meeting version: six people, 30 minutes, plus five minutes of "can everyone see my screen". At $120,000 average salary that's about $200 in time, and it can only happen when all six calendars line up, which might be next week.
The $0 version: a message in the team channel with both dates, the trade-offs, a recommendation and "reply by Friday noon or we go with the 14th". Most people answer in under five minutes, at a time that suits them. The decision is made by Friday instead of next Wednesday.
Not every case is that tidy. But if a team makes even a handful of decisions like this each week, the time adds up quickly.
Check what your meetings cost
The formula, with worked examples, is in how much does a meeting cost?. Plug your own numbers into the meeting cost calculator to see what a meeting costs by the week and the year. If you don't know salaries, the meeting cost by role pages give typical pay for common jobs.
Hourari puts a price on every meeting on your team's calendars automatically, so you can see which recurring meetings would make the best $0 meetings.