Back to Back Meetings - Who Benefits

How many times have we all been in meetings and hear attendees say "Sorry, need to drop off for another meeting" ?

1. Is it fault of meeting organizers that they book back to back meetings.

2. Or is it fault of attendees that they keep accepting meetings and jumping from one meeting to another. 

And more importantly, is this helping anyone - organization or the employees.

Are all of these meetings important to attend. Are we contributing effectively in each of these meetings or are we are on silent mode and busy with emails. Are we attending because we have FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

If we end up attending meetings for 5-6 hours in a day, then when do we actually work. When do we find time to enhance our knowledge, get creative, spend time with our teams to strengthen bonding ?

With Covid situation in last 8 months, the situation has become grim. Given that we do not even need to move from seats to get into conference rooms or switch from one conference room to another, all we are doing is sitting at one place jumping from one meeting to another whole day.

As meeting organizer, it is important that when we send meeting invitee, we check calendar availability for all attendees. If the calendar is already busy with meetings before and after this one, we avoid cramping another one in between.

As meeting attendee, it is absolutely fine to decline meetings whenever they are cramping our schedule. It is normal to decline and suggest another comfortable slot.