5 Ways to Build an Effective Meeting Culture

Hi, this is the Briefly Team.

"Why are we having this meeting?" "What did we actually decide?" Sound familiar? Studies show that professionals spend over 30% of their workday in meetings, yet most meetings fail to be truly productive.

Today, we're sharing 5 practical tips to make your meetings shorter, clearer, and more actionable.

1. Pre-Meeting: Define ONE Purpose

Every effective meeting has a clear, single-line objective.

❌ "Discuss project progress"
✅ "Decide whether to launch MVP by next Friday"

Tip: Always include this in your meeting invite: "By the end of this meeting, we will have decided/agreed on ___."

2. Fewer Attendees, More Authority

The more people in a meeting, the slower the decision-making process becomes exponentially.

Required attendees: People with decision-making authority
Optional attendees: People who just need information (can be replaced with meeting notes)

Remember Amazon's "Two Pizza Rule": If two pizzas can't feed the group, the meeting is too big.

3. Timebox It: 30 Minutes Is Enough

According to Parkinson's Law, work expands to fill the time available. Meetings are no different.

Standard meeting: 25 minutes (5-minute buffer)
Complex decisions: 50 minutes (10-minute buffer)

Tip: Set an alarm for 5 minutes before the meeting ends. Announce: "Let's use the last 5 minutes to finalize action items." This naturally drives toward conclusions.

4. After the Meeting: Record Only 3 Things

You don't need perfect meeting notes. Just capture these three things:

Decisions made: What was agreed upon?
Action items: Who does what, by when?
Open issues: What needs to be discussed next time?

💡 With Briefly, just upload your meeting recording and our AI automatically extracts these three elements for you.

5. Ask: "Is This Meeting Really Necessary?"

The most effective meeting is one that doesn't have to happen.

Before scheduling a meeting, ask yourself:

Can this be resolved via email or Slack?
Can I gather input asynchronously through a document?
Would a quick 1:1 conversation be faster?

Wrapping Up

Changing meeting culture doesn't happen overnight. But start with small changes. Clearly state the purpose, shorten the time, summarize action items—just these three changes will noticeably improve your team's productivity.

Briefly is here to reduce the time you spend on meeting "cleanup" so you can focus on what truly matters.

Thank you,

The Briefly Team