Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done

by Rebecca Hinds

INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER

“Everyone wants better meetings, but no one seems to know how—until now.” —Reid Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author and cofounder of LinkedIn

“ This read may save you countless hours.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of the podcast

From Rebecca Hinds, PhD—organizational expert who has helped Fortune 500 companies fix their fractured collaboration—comes a bold, battle-tested blueprint for tackling the workplace’s biggest meetings.

Meetings are broken. They are relics from a bygone era of top-down hierarchies and factory-like procedures—designed to issue orders, flaunt power, and keep the hierarchy intact. In today’s digital, collaborate-or-bust era, this model isn’t just inefficient, it actively harms employees and organizations.

Drawing on decades of research and stories from leading companies like Google, Salesforce, Pixar, YouTube, and Dropbox, Your Best Meeting Ever provides a blueprint to transform your meetings from monotonous, soul-crushing time sinks into powerful tools for collaboration. The secret? Treat them like products. Using seven product design principles, you’ll turn your meetings into well-designed products that actually drive work forward and serve your most important users—the people in your organization. You’ll

- Why every organization needs a “Meeting Doomsday” to reset collaboration, and how to strategically orchestrate one at your company.
- How to fix your communication system so meetings are a last resort, not a knee-jerk default.
- Which meeting metrics matter—and which do more harm than good.
- How to inject moments of delight into your meetings so people genuinely want to show up.
- When to integrate technology into your meetings so you enhance collaboration, rather than detract from it.

More than just a practical guide, Your Best Meeting Ever is a rallying call to rethink how we collaborate in the modern workplace. Whether you’re a leader or an individual contributor, this powerful book will nudge you to be audacious—to challenge the existing norms and embrace new paradigms—so you’ll never dread another meeting again.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Business Leadership, Communication, Professional Development

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 3, 2026

About the author

Rebecca Hinds is the bestselling author of Your Best Meeting Ever and a leading expert on work transformation and the future of work. Rebecca earned a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Stanford University. In 2022, she founded the Work Innovation Lab at Asana, a first-of-its-kind think tank that conducts actionable research to help leaders and organizations navigate the growing challenges and changes of work. In 2025, she founded the Work AI Institute at Glean, where she leads cutting-edge research on how AI is reshaping work.

Rebecca's award-winning research and insights are consistently featured in places like Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., and Time. Rebecca is a co-instructor for the CNBC Make It course, How to Use AI to Be More Successful at Work, and a columnist at Inc. and Reworked.

Reviews

[Jakob Haddick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wer viel Zeit in Sitzungen verbringt weiß, wie unproduktiv sie manchmal erscheinen – viel geredet, aber wenig ist bei rausgekommen. Rebecca Hinds zeigt, wie man unnötige Sitzungstermine reduziert und ersetzt und wie man nötige und sinnvolle Sitzungstermine effektiv und angenehm gestaltet. Wen und wie viele Teilnehmer man einladen sollte, wie eine gute Agenda (und ein gutes Protokoll) aussieht, wie man redselige Teilnehmer bremst und stille einbindet, wie man Technik (Video / Audio/ PPT / KI...) sinnvoll einsetzt... ein super praktisches Buch. Ein wenig lang, aber super praktisch. Es lohnt sich, die für einen wichtigen Kapitel nach dem ersten Lesen noch einmal sorgfältig durchzugehen. Das sind gut investierte Stunden, die einem später viel Zeit und Nerven ersparen können. Und durch jeden weiteren Teilnehmer, der im eigenen Meeting sitzt, multipliziert sich der Ertrag.

[Jung]

"Your Best Meeting Ever" by Rebecca Hinds breaks a frustrating truth right at the start: most meetings aren’t broken because people are incompetent - they’re broken because they’re never really designed. They’re inherited, repeated, and tolerated. And over time, they quietly eat into the hours where real work should happen. What the book does well is strip away the complexity and show that better meetings don’t require radical change - just disciplined, consistent choices.

One of the most practical ideas is 'meeting debt.' Just like financial debt, it builds up slowly and becomes hard to notice until it’s already draining your time. Recurring meetings are the biggest culprit - those weekly or monthly calls that no one questions anymore. The fix isn’t subtle: delete them. Then bring back only the ones that can clearly justify their existence. That reset forces clarity. It also shifts the culture, making it normal to protect time instead of automatically surrendering it to the calendar.

Once you’ve created space, the next challenge is making sure meetings that remain are actually worth it. This is where the idea of Return On Time Invested (ROTI) stands out. Instead of vague impressions like 'that went okay,' you get direct feedback from participants on whether the meeting was valuable. The key is that it’s simple and actionable - people rate the meeting and suggest one improvement. It avoids overcomplicated metrics and keeps the focus where it belongs: better decisions and clearer outcomes.

Another strong theme is ruthless simplicity. Meetings tend to expand - more topics, more people, more time - until they feel productive without actually producing anything. The book pushes in the opposite direction. Cut the agenda in half. Rewrite topics as decisions or actions. Limit attendees to only those who matter. Shorten the duration. These aren’t cosmetic tweaks; they fundamentally change how meetings feel. When time is tight and purpose is clear, people show up differently - more focused, more prepared, and less likely to drift.

But the book doesn’t treat meetings as isolated events. It zooms out and looks at the whole communication system. If your team relies on meetings to share updates, clarify simple issues, or track routine work, that’s a sign something else is broken - usually your tools or workflows. Meetings become a patch for poor communication design. Fix the system - clear channels, defined purposes for tools - and suddenly you need fewer meetings in the first place.

There’s also a strong human angle. Meetings fail not just because of structure, but because of behavior. Dominating voices silence others. Late starts signal that time doesn’t matter. Jargon confuses instead of clarifies. Boredom creeps in when nothing meaningful is happening. These 'energy bugs' are easy to ignore, but they compound quickly. The fixes are straightforward: encourage balanced participation, start on time no matter what, use plain language, and focus on real decisions. Small behavioral shifts can completely change the atmosphere of a meeting.

Timing is another overlooked factor. Many meetings exist simply because they always have. But work doesn’t move in neat, repeating cycles - it has rhythms. Strategic discussions, project checkpoints, and daily coordination all happen at different tempos. When meetings align with those rhythms, they feel natural and useful. When they don’t, they interrupt progress instead of supporting it. This idea is simple but powerful: don’t schedule meetings by habit - schedule them by need.

Technology plays a supporting role, but the book is careful not to overhype it. The baseline is reliability. If people can’t hear each other or struggle with tools, everything else falls apart. Beyond that, technology should reduce friction, not add to it. That includes using AI carefully - for tasks like note-taking or scheduling - while keeping humans in control of decisions and relationships. The emphasis is on 'calm technology,' tools that fade into the background instead of demanding attention.

What ties all these ideas together is a shift in mindset. Meetings shouldn’t be the default way work happens - they should be a deliberate choice. And like any system, they require maintenance. Without regular resets, clear metrics, and thoughtful design, they drift back into inefficiency.

In the end, "Your Best Meeting Ever" argues that better meetings aren’t about doing more - they’re about doing less, but with intention. Fewer meetings, shorter meetings, clearer meetings. When that happens, something interesting follows: work starts to move again. Decisions get made. People regain time to think. And the calendar stops controlling the day. It’s not a revolutionary idea - but it’s one most teams haven’t actually put into practice.

[Anne LaRocque · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've ever sat through a mind-numbing meeting wondering "Why am I here?" or found yourself trapped in calendar carnage with no time for actual work, Dr. Rebecca Hinds' Your Best Meeting Ever is the wake-up call you desperately need. This isn't another corporate self-help book filled with platitudes about "adding agendas" or "respecting everyone's time." This is a full-scale manifesto that treats meetings as what they truly are: the most expensive, broken, and overlooked products in your organization.

Hinds opens with a fascinating historical hook that immediately grabbed me—the revelation that weaponizing meetings was literally a WWII sabotage tactic from the OSS's Simple Sabotage Field Manual.

The core premise is powerful: treat your meetings like products. Not just any products, but the most important ones in your organization. Suddenly, meetings need to justify their cost, demonstrate value, incorporate user feedback, and be iterated upon. Hinds structures the book around seven meeting design principles, each addressing a specific dysfunction. My favorite is Volume (Cut Your Meeting Debt). The concept of "meeting debt" is genius—like technical debt in software, it's the accumulation of outdated, bloated meetings that strangle productivity. Hinds provides a five-step framework for launching calendar cleanses (including how to run your own "Meeting Doomsday") and preventing debt from building back up.

What I appreciate most is that Hinds doesn't prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution. She acknowledges that different organizations have different dysfunctions and encourages readers to start with their biggest pain points.

The writing is sharp, witty, and refreshingly honest. Hinds doesn't pull punches when describing the absurdity of modern meeting culture—executives who use "Sorry, I'm double-booked" as a status flex, meetings that function as theater rather than work, the pandemic-era panic that led managers to schedule even MORE meetings because they couldn't "manage by walking around." She peppers the book with memorable anecdotes.

The case studies are compelling and varied. Beyond the famous calendar purges at Dropbox, Shopify, and Slack, Hinds shares results from her own Meeting Doomsday experiments. She explains the behavioral science behind why a full calendar cleanse works better than incremental audits (citing Daniel Kahneman's work on breaking old habits through deep reflection). The book is rich with both research citations and practical implementation details.

Perhaps most importantly, this book acknowledges a truth most meeting advice ignores: quick fixes won't save us. No amount of agendas, meeting cost calculators, No-Meeting Days, or AI note-takers will fix fundamentally broken systems. Meetings aren't broken because someone forgot to add structure. They're broken by design.

Your Best Meeting Ever is essential reading for anyone who attends meetings. Whether you're an individual contributor sick of wasting time, a manager drowning in meeting debt, or an executive wondering why your organization can't get anything done despite being in meetings all day, this book provides a clear, actionable, and hopeful path forward.

Hinds has written the definitive guide for fixing the modern workplace's most expensive and overlooked problem. Buy it, read it, and start designing meetings that don't just fill calendars—they actually work.

[Get Your Tinsel in a Tangle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book opens with literal wartime sabotage tactics… and the wildest part is that it’s not even a metaphor. The CIA once told citizens to weaponize meetings during WWII to make enemy systems collapse under bureaucratic nonsense, and Rebecca Hinds is here like, “Cool, now let’s unweaponize them before Carol from Marketing drags us into another soul-leeching sync with 14 agenda items and zero vibes.”

Your Best Meeting Ever is basically the Marie Kondo of workplace dysfunction. But instead of asking what sparks joy, it’s asking, “Why are you holding a thirty-minute meeting for something that could’ve been a six-line Slack thread, Greg?” And I love that. I want that needlepointed on a pillow and flung directly into the nearest conference room.

What makes this book sing is that it doesn’t just roast bad meetings, it autopsies them. Hinds breaks down every shade of meeting chaos, from the bloated advisory groups that multiplied like gremlins after midnight, to the dreaded “cost calculator” moment where you realize your quick check-in is bleeding the company of $700 in salaried time. (Yes, I winced. Yes, I did math I immediately regretted.)

Her tone isn’t exactly spicy, this is still a professional blueprint, not a rage-text from someone trapped in a calendar spiral, but the case studies slap. Dropbox’s "Armeetingeddon" is pure workplace drama. IT just deleted everyone's recurring meetings overnight like a petty ex with access to your Google Calendar, and honestly, they were right for it. A moment of silence for the weekly sync that didn’t make it.

The “product design” framework is the core gimmick, and it works. Treating meetings like user-centered products is the kind of tech-world crossover that could get cringe fast, but Hinds keeps it grounded. It's not buzzword salad, it’s tactical, it’s actionable, and it tells you exactly why your meetings suck and how to fix them without having to read between the synergy lines.

That said, this book is still a workplace manual. The tone is calm, the ideas are clean, but don’t expect wild prose or laugh-out-loud sass. I’d have loved a little more bite, a little more “rage against the calendar” energy. It hits all the right notes, but sometimes I wanted a full musical number, you know? But as a guide for team leads, department heads, or literally anyone who's ever screamed internally at the phrase “quick alignment call,” this delivers. 4 stars.

And a big chaotic-thank-you-hug to Simon Element and NetGalley for the ARC. I never thought I’d call a book about meetings fun... but here we are, professionally unhinged and emotionally reorganized.

[Gladys · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an engaging read from start to finish. Given how much time is wasted in meetings, there are few things we can do that are more impactful than fixing our broken meetings. I appreciated that this wasn't just a series of tips and tricks, but a fundamental mindset shift in fixing meetings from the ground up. My favorite chapter was the chapter on rhythm. I've never thought about meeting rhythm and this chapter convinced me why it's important and how to align meetings with the operational, strategic, and tactical rhythms in our organization, along with how to implement strategic pauses. Arguably the best business book I've read over the past 5 years in terms of helping me become a better leader.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I simply felt like this book was a too-long meeting that should have been an email. The premise of this book "meetings are bad" so eliminate them, might work in startups and tech industry, but is extremely difficult in other settings. I agree that there are better ways to organize them, and I like the idea of no-meeting days. Some other tidbits like the DRI, or directly responsible individual, is a fantastic idea. That's when there is a single, clearly named person assigned to an agenda item or action item who is ultimately accountable for the success of that task, ensuring it moves forward from discussion to completion.

[Mo Brady · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sure this is a great book for someone who's job is to structure large teams across multiple departments and locations. That's certainly who the book is geared toward based on the anecdotes that start each chapter.

However, as a leader of a small team I found remarkably little that I could take away from the book. Too much time was spent on eliminating meetings that could have been emails, with not enough time spent on how to design a well-structured meeting.

That being said, I did take away a couple of specific ideas - brainwriting vs. brainstorming, and the importance of a corporate manifesto. But I didn't need 240 pages to get those.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading for anyone who leads a meeting

A tactical guide to design productive meetings and remove meeting bloat from calendars. A great gift for those who are entering the workforce - will empower them to break the bad habit of “back-to-back” meetings for future generations. For those who have sat in ridiculous meetings, pinging colleagues asking “why are we here?”, this book will arm you with research to gentle decline the meeting about meetings. Go get your time back.

[André · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always had a dislike for meetings. My former leader's meeting were tedious and boring monologues about nothing, or the next meeting. Alas, recurring meetings lead to routine, and less thought and boring, non-productive meetings. Rebecca's Hinds' mantra, to see meetings as a product with an ROI, and her method of culling meetings that don't meet the 4D-CEO test are brilliant and easily applied. Highly recommended book if you're drowning in endless meetings without moving forward.

[Nicolás Guasaquillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cut recurring clutter through a decisive reset, then keep only what earns its time. Measure quality with signals you can act on, simplify agendas and attendance, and fix the wider communication flow so meetings stop becoming the catch-all solution. Protect energy by addressing domination, lateness, jargon, and boredom. Match cadence to how work actually moves, and upgrade tech carefully so it reduces friction while preserving trust and focus.

[Carlos Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an engaging read. I didn't expect a book about meetings to be so interesting and yet still actionable. The accolades from Adam Grant, Reid Hoffman, and others are deserved. Your Best Meeting Ever changed the way I lead meetings and attend them. Everyone is a codesigner of better meetings.

[Aoife · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book a lot. It addresses one of the most common issues at work: too many unproductive meetings.

I specifically enjoyed how the chapters started with a story and how there were stories weaved throughout, which made it more memorable.

I also appreciated how practical it was. There are specific things I’ll be implementing straight away, like creating agendas with a verb & noun, and using meetings to move work forward rather than endless discussions.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some great ideas in here, but one of the frustrating things about good business books is you can’t implement all the ideas unless you are a high level executive or work at a small startup. For those of us mid-level managers at large companies, we do not have the power to put these ideas to use. There are a lot of good takeaways though!

[Evelina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed opinion about this book. First author starts bashing meetings and it almost feels too much, too dark and too extreme. There are some good ideas, like 4D CEO review for the meeting, principles for 121s, etc etc, but indeed, it is something too long.

[Racer_rajesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Book, Basic princples to eliminate bad meeting, techniques to run effective meetings. This is must read for newly promoted managers and project managers.

[Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book; highly actionable. Changed how I run and attend meetings.

[Inka Partanen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jopa yllättävänkin hyvä setti. Odotin aika tavanomaisia mietteitä ja vaikka ne tästä löytyivätkin, näkökulma oli lisäksi varsin laaja ja monipuolinen.

[Subramanian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly well written and deeply researched book on what makes meetings more effective! Highly recommend

[Jon Barr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straightforward and practical, I'll be implementing parts of this book immediately, like leaving buffers between meetings by scheduling them for 25 or 50 minutes instead of 30 and 60.

[Mikael Agdahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful, useful and somewhat witty 😌

[Susie Minahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent tips on how to make meetings better