Meetingitis is the excessive use of unnecessary, unproductive or poorly designed meetings that ends up taking away the time we need to do our actual work.
It’s not a disease.
But sometimes it feels like one.
It’s that feeling when you open your calendar in the morning and discover that it’s packed with meetings.
One after another.
No time to think.
No time to work.
No time to make decisions.
And sometimes, without really knowing what half of them are actually for.
That’s Meetingitis.
Three Ways to Define Meetingitis
There is no single universal definition of the concept.
And that’s precisely why we like it.
1. The Simple Definition
Meetingitis is meeting too much and meeting badly.
2. The Business Definition
It is an organizational dysfunction that occurs when meetings stop being a tool for collaboration, decision-making and progress, and become an excessive part of the working day.
3. Our Definition
Meetingitis is using meetings as the automatic response to problems that could often be solved another way.
Because a meeting should help us move forward.
It shouldn’t become the work itself.
Where Does the Word Meetingitis Come From?
We didn’t invent the concept.
And it’s not new.
The word uses the familiar suffix “-itis”, traditionally associated with diseases or inflammation, applied ironically to meetings.
The idea has been used for decades to describe the tendency of some organizations to multiply meetings and turn them into an excessive or unproductive activity.
In English, Meetingitis follows the same logic:
meeting + itis.
Essentially, it describes an excessive tendency to organize unnecessary meetings.
There was no specific day when someone said:
“Today, we invented Meetingitis.”
And that’s probably not the important part.
Because the problem was already there.
And we’re seeing more of it.
Meetingitis in Different Languages
The problem is highly international.
It affects corporations and multinational companies around the world.
Same concept. Different name.
🇪🇸 Reunionitis
The term used in Spain and much of Latin America.
🇲🇽 Juntitis
A term particularly used in Mexico and other Central American countries to describe an excess of work meetings.
🇫🇷 Réunionite / Réunionnite
The French terms used to describe the excessive multiplication of meetings.
🇬🇧 Meetingitis
The English version of the concept, combining meeting with the suffix “-itis”.
Different words. Same problem.
How to Recognize Meetingitis
There are some pretty easy symptoms to identify.
📅 A Calendar Full of Meetings
Your day starts with a meeting and ends with another.
And somewhere in between, you try to do the work you’re actually paid to do.
🔁 Recurring Meetings Nobody Questions
“It’s the weekly meeting.”
Why?
Silence.
But next Tuesday, it’s back on the calendar.
⏰ Meetings That Are Too Long
If a meeting lasts an hour simply because the calendar is configured that way, we have a problem.
👥 Too Many People
There are meetings with eight people to make a decision that one person could make.
🔄 Meetings to Prepare for Other Meetings
Yes.
It happens.
And probably more often than we want to admit.
📧 Meetings That Could Have Been an Email
Or a document.
Or a message.
Or simply a decision.
🧠 No Time to Think
This is one of the most dangerous symptoms.
Because when we spend the entire day in meetings, there is no time left to analyze, create, prepare, execute or decide.
🤷 Meetings Without Decisions
People talk.
They debate.
They share.
They talk some more.
And eventually:
“Let’s have another meeting and look at it.”
Who Suffers From Meetingitis?
Practically everyone.
But some profiles are particularly exposed.
Executives & Managers
Spending much of the working day in meetings can become a perceived sign of responsibility or importance.
When it should be exactly the opposite:
an executive’s time has a cost too.
Project Managers
Status updates, steering committees, kick-offs, workshops, coordination meetings, meetings to follow up on meetings…
Sales Teams
Internal meetings, clients, follow-ups, forecasts, pipelines, coordination.
Technology & Product Teams
Daily stand-ups, planning, refinement, retrospectives, steering committees, syncs…
HR Teams
Because almost every process involving people eventually seems to end up with a meeting.
And, of course:
Anyone Whose Calendar No Longer Belongs to Them.
What Companies Suffer From Meetingitis?
It is not a problem exclusive to any particular industry.
It can appear in:
A multinational.
A startup.
A bank.
A consulting firm.
A technology company.
A public-sector organization.
A university.
A small business.
But there is one pattern that tends to repeat:
the more complex an organization becomes, the easier it is for the number of meetings to grow.
More teams.
More countries.
More functions.
More projects.
More stakeholders.
More need for coordination.
And often, one apparently simple solution:
Schedule a meeting.
Until the calendar explodes.
Meetings Aren’t the Problem
This is probably the most important idea behind Meetingitis.
We don’t want to eliminate meetings.
Meetings are necessary.
We need them to:
- make decisions;
- solve problems;
- create;
- coordinate;
- share information;
- unblock projects;
- work together.
The problem appears when the meeting becomes the automatic answer to everything.
A good meeting can create enormous value.
A bad meeting can consume the time of ten people.
So this isn’t simply about having fewer meetings.
It’s about having better meetings.
How Do You Solve Meetingitis?
There is no magic vaccine.
And eliminating every meeting isn’t the answer either.
Meetingitis is tackled by working on several elements:
Diagnose
Understand how an organization actually meets.
Measure
How many meetings are there?
How long do they last?
How many people attend?
How much do they cost?
Analyze
Which meetings create value — and which don’t?
Redesign
Change formats, frequency, attendees and duration.
Change Habits
Learn to question an invitation before accepting it — and a meeting before scheduling it.
Measure Again
Because if we don’t know whether we’ve improved, we’re simply guessing.
And that’s where our work begins.
What Is Meetingitis.com?
Meetingitis.com was created to make visible a problem experienced by millions of professionals every week — and one that many organizations still don’t know how to address.
We don’t simply want to talk about meetings.
We want to help change them.
That’s why we’re building an initiative around three objectives:
1. Make It Visible
Put a name to the problem.
Research what is happening.
Start conversations.
Share data.
And make questioning a meeting feel normal.
2. Give People the Tools
We want every professional to be able to start improving their meetings without having to hire anyone.
That’s why we’re developing:
- Meeting cost calculators.
- Quick diagnostic templates.
- Checklists.
- Analysis tools.
- Quick Wins.
- Resources for professionals and companies.
3. Help Organizations Transform
For organizations that want to go further, we’re developing our own methodology to diagnose, measure and transform meeting culture.
Because a company doesn’t change its meetings simply because someone says:
“From now on, let’s have more efficient meetings.”
You have to understand how the organization works.
Measure.
Analyze.
Change.
Measure again.
Our Goal
We want to achieve something that is very simple to say — and surprisingly difficult to achieve:
fewer useless meetings.
fewer unproductive meetings.
fewer meetings by default.
And more:
time to work.
time to think.
time to decide.
time to create.
Because productivity isn’t about filling the calendar.
It’s about making the time we have create value.
Do You Have Meetingitis?
You probably don’t need a medical diagnosis.
You just need to look at your calendar.
How many meetings do you have this week?
How many are actually necessary?
How many will end with a decision?
And the most uncomfortable question:
How many of them could simply not exist?
Start there.
Discover our Quick Wins →
Calculate how much your meetings cost →
Explore our methodology →
And if you want to know what your organization’s meeting culture really looks like:
Start by measuring it.