meeting overload
/ˈmiːtɪŋ ˈoʊvərloʊd/
CommonHaving so many meetings that you cannot get any real work done.
Often used to critique meeting culture broadly, not just personal overload. The implication is that most meetings could be replaced with a Slack message or a doc.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | checked my calendar. tuesday is nine hours of meetings. this is meeting overload. | An entire day of meetings leaves no time to actually work. | x, 2023 |
| 02 | meeting overload is how companies pretend people are busy instead of making actual progress | Excessive meetings are a symptom of poor work culture, not productivity. | x, 2024 |
| 03 | took a no-meeting wednesday and got more done than the whole rest of the week | One protected day without meetings outperformed four days full of them. | reddit, 2023 |
| 04 | manager booked another sync. solving meeting overload with more meetings. | The irony of using a meeting to discuss the problem of too many meetings. | reddit, 2022 |
Use it when
- Your day is back-to-back calls with no time to work.
- You are arguing that your company has too many meetings.
- Explaining why you are behind on deliverables.
- Describing a culture where meetings are the default for everything.
Do not use it when
- You just had one meeting you found unproductive.
Meeting overload vs zoom fatigue
meeting overload
Meeting overload is about volume, the sheer number of meetings preventing real work.
VS
zoom-fatigue
Zoom fatigue is about the specific exhaustion from video calls.
Origin and context
Gained currency as remote work became widespread and meeting culture intensified. Research from Microsoft and others during 2020 to 2022 documented the measurable increase in meeting load during the pandemic era.
- First seen
- early-2020s
- Confidence
- medium
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/meeting-overloadUpdated: 2026-08-29License: CC BY 4.0