Co‑authored with Elena Skvortsova, HRD at Muse Group Co‑authored with Elena Skvortsova, HRD at Muse Group The idea of a “no-meeting day” is an easy sell, especially when 70% of workers believe email could replace over a quarter of their meetings, and 28% of meetings leave employees with lasting negative effects, including impaired engagement and productivity. Block out one day a week, free your team from Zoom and Teams’ fatigue, and voilà – deep work and productivity flourish, micromanagement and stress reduced. At least, that’s the theory. leave But anyone who has ever attempted this knows how quickly the benefits can unravel. Meetings don’t disappear; they migrate. Slack messages and emails multiply. Questions that would’ve been addressed in a quick stand-up now hover, unresolved. And instead of feeling empowered, people can feel more disconnected. We didn’t want our no-meeting day to be just another box ticked on an asynchronous work wish list. We wanted it to work – to create real value for people’s time, creativity, and focus. To get there, we had to rethink why we were meeting in the first place. asynchronous work why The Real Problem Isn’t Meetings When teams first try to implement a no-meeting day, it’s often with good intentions – but without structural support. Meetings get squeezed into the other four days, making calendars even more cramped. Communication shifts channels: a Slack ping here, an email thread there, and soon that precious "focus time" is gone. Collaboration can also take a hit. According to a 2023 Harvard Business School study, no-meeting days boosted individual productivity by 35%, but came at the cost of a 25% drop in cross-team collaboration. For roles or projects that require constant back-and-forth, asynchronous work isn’t always straightforward. Blocking out synchronous time can, surprisingly, stall momentum if there aren’t strong decision-making systems in place. study We learned this the hard way. We figured that the problem isn’t meetings – it’s our relationship with them. Too often, meetings are the default. They are used for decisions, updates, brainstorming, or just because they’ve always been there. We realized the real opportunity wasn’t just carving out quiet time. It was rewriting the rulebook for how and why we gather in the first place. how why How We Made No-Meeting Days Work Instead of starting with a policy, we began with a mindset shift by considering meetings as the most expensive way to resolve issues and treating synchronous time as a valuable resource. After all, a 30-minute meeting with just three employees can cost a company anywhere from $700 to $1,600, Shopify found. found We asked ourselves: "How can decisions happen without meetings?" That led to a company-wide rethinking of not just when, but how we communicate. We embraced an asynchronous-first culture, grounded in the belief that communication doesn't have to be immediate to be effective. From there, we introduced a set of practices that reshaped our meeting culture and made no-meetings days a lasting part of how we work. without when how Here is what made our no-meeting Wednesdays stick: Async-first mindset: Every team member is encouraged to communicate in writing first. Decision logs, project templates, and clear documentation are used in place of real-time discussions whenever possible to power asynchronous decision making. Guidelines, not rules: Our no-meeting Wednesdays aren’t about rigidity – they’re about intention. We don’t ban meetings altogether: urgent production issues, daily standups for high-frequency teams, or critical cross-team syncs are still allowed. These intentional exceptions help ensure that collaboration stays fluid and no one gets blocked – while still protecting focus as the default. Focus mode is respected: On Wednesdays, many of us set our internal status to “do not disturb.” We also explicitly advise colleagues not to expect quick responses, and to avoid reaching out unless it’s truly time-sensitive. To support this, we introduced a 72-hour response window for internal messages, helping to shift focus from speed to thoughtfulness. Deep work by design: We guide teams to reserve big, strategic projects for Wednesdays – tasks that require uninterrupted thought and flow – and ignore routine tasks and emails. That’s the day for writing, planning, and building with undivided attention. The type of work that’s too easily broken up by a calendar alert or a Slack buzz. Rethinking synchronous collaboration: Ironically, Wednesdays have become our preferred time for long-form retrospectives or multi-hour brainstorms. Why? Because if a meeting must happen, we want it to be substantial, meaningful, and free from time pressure. This, too, reinforces the value of meeting time. Async-first mindset: Every team member is encouraged to communicate in writing first. Decision logs, project templates, and clear documentation are used in place of real-time discussions whenever possible to power asynchronous decision making. Async-first mindset: Guidelines, not rules: Our no-meeting Wednesdays aren’t about rigidity – they’re about intention. We don’t ban meetings altogether: urgent production issues, daily standups for high-frequency teams, or critical cross-team syncs are still allowed. These intentional exceptions help ensure that collaboration stays fluid and no one gets blocked – while still protecting focus as the default. Guidelines, not rules: Focus mode is respected: On Wednesdays, many of us set our internal status to “do not disturb.” We also explicitly advise colleagues not to expect quick responses, and to avoid reaching out unless it’s truly time-sensitive. To support this, we introduced a 72-hour response window for internal messages, helping to shift focus from speed to thoughtfulness. Focus mode is respected: Deep work by design: We guide teams to reserve big, strategic projects for Wednesdays – tasks that require uninterrupted thought and flow – and ignore routine tasks and emails. That’s the day for writing, planning, and building with undivided attention. The type of work that’s too easily broken up by a calendar alert or a Slack buzz. Deep work by design: Rethinking synchronous collaboration: Ironically, Wednesdays have become our preferred time for long-form retrospectives or multi-hour brainstorms. Why? Because if a meeting must happen, we want it to be substantial, meaningful, and free from time pressure. This, too, reinforces the value of meeting time. Rethinking synchronous collaboration: must Of course, setting aside one day only works if the meetings that fill the rest of the week are intentional too. To ensure our meetings are consistently productive and respectful of everyone's time, we established a few ground rules: • Each team member sets their working hours in a calendar, which enables async work and respect to time zone differences. • Each meeting invite must include an objective, an agenda and a link to a pre-filled meeting notes page for everyone to come prepared. • Each meeting has to be set up for no longer than 40 minutes. • Meeting agenda has to be followed, and the meeting notes page is filled by all participants. A Shift in Meeting Culture While we’re still early in the process – the experiment has been introduced around two years ago – our team already sees the benefits. 88% of surveyed team members agree that no-meeting Wednesdays help them to concentrate on tasks without distraction, 79% say that it has become easier for them to allocate time for large and complex projects, and 62% mention that a day without meetings helps them improve quality of work and attention to details. But none of this works without intention. No-meeting days can’t be “days off” from communication. They must be active, thoughtfully protected zones for doing the kind of work that truly moves things forward. It’s tempting to treat no-meeting days like a silver bullet for productivity. What really works is creating a culture where meetings are deliberate, not automatic. Where teams are empowered to make decisions independently. Where communication is clear, purposeful, and (where possible) asynchronous. Now, our Wednesdays aren’t about having fewer meetings. They’re about building better habits the rest of the week and prioritizing meetings that matter. When your team knows that deep focus is protected – and when the meetings that do happen are high-quality and necessary – you’ll find that productivity isn’t just restored, it’s reimagined.
