No Time To Waste (Our Time)

🚨 Why this framework?

90% of employees say meetings are “costly” and “unproductive.”

1h meeting with 4 people = 4 hours lost
A 2h all-hands meeting with 40 = 80 hours = 10 full workdays

NTTW helps reclaim this time by eliminating unproductive meetings and transforming others into high-value sessions.

🧠 How it works

Prepare the meeting
Share updates asynchronously
Run a short, focused session
Follow-up with decisions and actions

The No Time To Waste method removes reporting meetings and replaces them with targeted working sessions. If there is no clear goal and tangible output, there is no meeting.

🚀 Getting started

Start simple. Choose your level and build over time.

Features	Level 1 - The Minimalist	Level 2 - The Perfectionist	Level 3 - The Nerd
Before the meeting
Apply the no time to waste pattern	✅	✅	✅
Share the topic to be discussed, the goal of the discussion, and the success criteria	✅	✅	✅
Share status elements in a known, shared, and archivable place (OneNote, Loop, Notion…)	✅	✅	✅
Share documents to read/know to effectively conduct the meeting	✅	✅	✅
Respond YES to invitations if I can/must attend	✅	✅	✅
Respond NO to invitations if I am absent/on leave/sick	✅	✅	✅
Cancel my meetings if I am absent/on leave/sick	✅	✅	✅
Take 5 minutes at the end of the week to review the meetings for the following week and check for conflicts	✅	✅	✅
Share concepts to know to effectively conduct the meeting		✅	✅
Do not have "unanswered" meetings in the calendar		✅	✅
Use the "mandatory" and "optional" features when scheduling the meeting		✅	✅
Shorten the meeting by 10 minutes		✅	✅
Take 5 minutes at the end of the day to review the meetings for the next day and check for conflicts		✅	✅
Delay the start of the meeting by 5 minutes			✅
Take 5 minutes in the middle of the day to prepare for the meetings of the next day			✅
During the meeting
Apply the no time to waste pattern	✅	✅	✅
Be on time for meetings	✅	✅	✅
Postpone the meeting if the "mandatory" participants are not present	✅	✅	✅
Ensure that time is managed (timekeeper)		✅	✅
Come prepared to the meetings		✅	✅
After the meeting
Share the minutes of the meeting	✅	✅	✅
Share and assign the task list	✅	✅	✅
Share the next steps	✅	✅	✅
Add your todos on your personal task management system (if applicable)		✅	✅

📩 Templates

Invite Template:

Meeting title : [An explicit and attractive title] - Read this before the meeting

Collaboration topic(s):

Topic 1
Topic 2 (if required/possible)
Objective: [A clear sentence explaining the objective of the discussion]

Documents:

List all the necessary documents for the meeting (attached to the invite or link included)
Updates: Please share your updates on this document before the meeting: [insert link here]

Agenda [Example, to be updated]:

5 minutes for Introduction
10 minutes for Q&A and potential alerts
30 minutes for collaboration

Methodology: I'm following the No Time to Waste method to reduce the time spent in non-productive meetings. You can find all the details and documentation about No Time to Waste on this page : https://blamouche.github.io/notimetowaste/

Follow-up document:

Date: [Insert date here]

Participants: [Insert list of participants here]

Updates:

[To be updated]
List item
List item
...

Alerts:

[To be updated]
List item
List item
...

Minutes of the meeting: [To be updated]

Todolist:

[ ] [To be updated]
[ ] List item
[ ] List item

Next steps:

[ ] [To be updated]
[ ] List item
[ ] List item

📣 Team Engagement

Start with the why
Use NTTW on one recurring meeting
Add badges in calendar titles
Lead by example

📚 Recommended Reading

Death by Meeting — Patrick Lencioni
Read This Before Our Next Meeting — Al Pittampalli
Getting Things Done — David Allen
Stop the Meeting Madness — HBR
Hate Meetings? — Inc.com