“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.”
– Dave Barry
Let’s be honest. You can probably count about 12 different things you would rather do with your time other than spending it in another drawn out meeting, including:
- Watching grass grow.
- Watching butter melt and paint dry.
- Tallying up the number of sand grains on a Cancun beach.
- Spending time with your nosy relatives playing charades at Thanksgiving dinner.
A positive development
Google plans to add a new “Time Insights” panel to their Calendar app.
The panel will show you how much time you’ve spent in meetings, providing you with all the evidence you need to prove that your time is being flushed down the pipes.
Automatically added
The “Time Insights” feature will be enabled by default and will be gradually rolled out to everyone over the next two weeks.
Keep your receipts
Unfortunately, all of this data will only be visible to you, not your manager (so you will need to screenshot your Insights if you want to use them as a hint of anything).
Some individuals might find this feature frightening, especially if you’re the one calling all these gatherings together. But, as others have said, awareness is the first step to recovery.
Maybe “Meeting Anonymous” groups will become a thing after Google rolls this out.
