☄️ How to Eliminate Low-Value Meetings

According to Harvard Business Review, the average executive spends 23 hours per week in meetings, but how many of those are actually necessary?

Successful teams aren't defined by how few meetings they have, but by how purposeful each meeting is.

Plus, meetings are expensive — a one hour meeting with five attendees making $200K/year costs around $500.

Most teams don’t think about this, however Levels Health — a remote-first company spanning multiple time zones — created a culture where synchronous time is treated as a precious resource, reserved only for conversations that truly benefit from real-time interaction.

Their approach isn't about eliminating meetings entirely, but about being intentional with which ones make the cut and which can be handled more efficiently.

Here's how you can apply their framework to transform your own team’s meeting culture:

1. Identify which meetings actually need to happen synchronously

Levels' team is distributed across various timezones in Canada, the US, Europe, and Latin America. This geographic diversity forced them to be intentional about which conversations truly require everyone in the same virtual room.

They discovered that information-sharing meetings could often be replaced with asynchronous communication, while decision-making, relationship-building, and complex problem-solving benefited from real-time interaction.

The question isn't "how do we eliminate meetings?" but rather "which conversations deserve dedicated synchronous time?"

2. Replace low-value meetings with better alternatives

For information that doesn't require real-time discussion, Levels uses:

• Comprehensive documentation in Notion: They create detailed memos across all areas and teams. Here's an example of one they created to align on press strategy—completed in just two days without a single meeting.

• Visual explanations via Loom: When something needs explanation beyond text, they use Loom to walk people through documents, spreadsheets, or decisions. Recipients can watch at their convenience, rewind as needed, and reference the recording later.

• Strategic email communication: They leverage email for what it does best—delivering clear information that doesn't require immediate feedback. Many team members use Superhuman for its shortcuts and saved snippet templates.

By offloading routine updates and information sharing to these channels, they preserve meeting time for discussions that truly benefit from synchronous communication.

3. Maximize the impact of your essential meetings

When Levels does have meetings, they follow these practices to ensure each one delivers maximum value:

• Only inviting essential participants

• Preparing thoroughly in advance

• Prioritizing being on time

• Recording meetings and distributing comprehensive notes

• Following through on action items promptly

The result? When a meeting appears on their calendar, everyone knows it's worth their time.

Bottom line

The goal isn't to eliminate meetings — it's to eliminate the wrong meetings.

Look at your calendar and ask yourself:

• Which of these meetings truly require synchronous discussion?

• Which could be handled through documentation, recorded videos, or well-crafted emails?

• For the meetings that remain, how can I ensure they deliver maximum value?

By being strategic about which meetings you schedule and how you conduct them, you free yourself to focus on the conversations that truly matter — the ones that build relationships, solve complex problems, and move your business forward.

And when you do need to schedule those high-value meetings? That's where Workmate comes in — helping you coordinate the right people at the right time, so you can focus on making every conversation count.

Until next week,

David Lobo

Head of Growth, Workmate

P.S. If you know someone struggling with meeting overload, forward this to them.

P.P.S. Ready to take back control of your time? Workmate is an AI-powered Executive Assistant that schedules your meetings, manages your calendar, and prioritizes based on your preferences. Join the waitlist today.