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How badly do you need a Meeting Doomsday? 

If meetings were products, most would've been recalled long ago. They fail QA, frustrate their "customers," and keep shipping buggy updates no one asked for. But instead of killing them off, we let them pile up—zombie stand-ups from 2024, bloated status reviews, and "quick syncs" that metastasize into hour-long time sinks.

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The Meeting Doomsday Test is a no-BS diagnostic for your calendar: 24 yes/no questions. Answer honestly, and see just how deep you’ve sunk into calendar quicksand.

1. You have at least one recurring meeting on your calendar that's devolved into group therapy instead of actual work.
2. In the past year, you've done a calendar cleanse and ensured that every recurring meeting justifies its existence.
3. You show up to meetings you know are pointless because the fear of being left out overrides your common sense.
4. You sometimes schedule meetings to avoid thinking through hard problems alone.
5. In the past month, you've started a private channel or DM to roast a meeting in real-time with other hostages.
6. You have a clear rule for what deserves to be a meeting—and you actually follow it, even when it's uncomfortable.
7. In the past month, you've said "let's park that for now" knowing full well it's never coming back from the parking lot.
8. You sometimes talk in meetings mainly to show that you’re contributing, not because you have something valuable to add.
9. When someone declines your meeting invite, you take it personally.
10. When your calendar is jam-packed with meetings, you feel important—maybe even indispensable.
11. In the past month, you've sat through someone reading their slides out loud in a meeting like it's story time in kindergarten.
12. In the past week, someone thanked you for running an effective meeting—and you're pretty sure they meant it.
13. In the past month, you've assembled people for a "decision-making meeting" when the person with real authority wasn't in the room.
14. In the past month, you've assigned action items in a meeting knowing full well no one will actually do them.
15. In the past month, you've held a pre-meeting so people could rehearse looking aligned before the actual meeting.
16. You usually set the agenda in your 1:1 with your manager instead of getting steamrolled by their priorities or pet ideas.
17. You ask people if your meetings were worth their time—instead of assuming they are just because you scheduled them.
18. When a meeting gets canceled, your first feeling is relief—not disappointment.
19. In the past month, you've padded a meeting invite list as an insurance policy—so if the decision goes sideways, you're not the only one on the hook.
20. You have no-meeting days or no-meeting blocks on your calendar—and you don't cave even when someone begs for "just a quick 15 minutes."
21. In the past month, you've led a meeting where someone dispatched their AI bot instead of showing up themselves because they had better things to do than attend.
22. In the past month, you've said "let's take this offline" during a meeting to avoid making a decision in front of witnesses.
23. In the past month, you've scheduled a "brainstorm" meeting for something you'd already decided.
24. In the past month, you've attended a "check-in" or status update meeting where nothing had changed since the last check-in.
Total Score

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Result

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Remarks

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Ready for a Meeting Doomsday? 

Pre-order Your Best Meeting Ever through Porchlight (or email your receipt from your favorite bookstore to rebecca@rebeccahinds.com) and you’ll receive:

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  • an exclusive How to Run a Meeting Doomsday excerpt from the book

  • plus a practical, no-BS Meeting Doomsday checklist you can use immediately

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It's the fastest way to reset your calendar and reclaim precious time for real work. 

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