Mamie Kanfer Stewart on Meeting Smarter: How to Stop Wasting Time at Work (Shortcast)

Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life

In this Shortcast edition, Mamie Kanfer Stewart, co-author of Momentum: Creating Effective, Engaging and Enjoyable Meetings, explains why meetings are one of the biggest productivity drains—and how to fix them. From clarifying desired outcomes to optimizing who’s in the room, Mamie shares practical, people-focused strategies to make meetings more effective, purposeful, and energizing.

In this Shortcast, we explore:

• Start With the Outcome: Don’t ask, “What’s the purpose of the meeting?” Ask, “What do we want to achieve?” This mindset shift transforms how meetings are planned and executed.

• Alternatives to Meeting: Mamie highlights when meetings aren’t needed—and how tools like email or asynchronous comments can often deliver the same outcome with less time.

• Before, During, and After: She outlines a full meeting workflow—from designing the agenda around outcomes, to assigning timekeepers and capturing key decisions and next steps.

• Fixing Meeting FOMO: We dive into how a culture of over-inviting people to meetings can waste time and lead to disengagement—and what to do instead.

• Reframing Meetings as Real Work: When done right, meetings are collaborative work, not interruptions. Mamie encourages giving them the same intentionality as solo tasks.

Mamie’s insights help shift meetings from draining distractions to meaningful, productive moments that move work forward.

Find more Shortcasts like this one on Blinkist here.

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