Hours in Meetings

Hours in Meetings measures the total time engineers spend in scheduled calendar events over a given period. It reflects how much of a developer’s day is consumed by coordination and communication tasks rather than deep, focused work.

Calculation

Meetings are typically defined as any scheduled calendar event with multiple participants, such as standups, planning sessions, demos, or 1:1s. Only accepted or attended events are included.

This metric is calculated by summing the total meeting time for each individual or group over a specific time window:

hours in meetings = sum of attended meeting durations per period

Goals

Hours in Meetings helps teams assess whether collaboration demands are encroaching on productive time. It answers questions like:

• Are developers getting enough uninterrupted focus time?
• Is time in meetings growing over time or varying by role?
• Are there opportunities to streamline or consolidate recurring meetings?

Monitoring this metric supports better time management, healthier work rhythms, and more intentional use of calendar time.

Variations

Hours in Meetings may also be called Meeting Load, Meeting Time, or Calendar Load. Common variations include:

• 1:1 Meeting Time, tracking time spent in manager or peer check-ins
• Team Meeting Time, covering standups, sprint rituals, and working sessions
• Cross-functional Meetings, tracking time spent outside the immediate team
• Meeting Hours per Person, for individual workload analysis
• Average Meeting Duration, to assess the typical length of scheduled interactions

Some teams also track Focus Time as the inverse, hours not in meetings, to optimize deep work availability.

Limitations

Hours in Meetings tracks time, not quality. A calendar full of valuable meetings may be more effective than fewer, less relevant ones. The metric also doesn’t distinguish between optional and required attendance or measure how effectively meetings are run.

To interpret this metric more effectively, use it alongside:

Complementary Metric	Why It’s Relevant
Calendar Fragmentation	Reveals whether meetings are breaking up available focus time.
Work in Progress (WIP)	Shows whether multitasking is compounding the effect of limited deep work hours.
Cycle Time	Helps assess whether meeting load is impacting overall task completion speed.

Optimization

Reducing meeting load doesn’t mean eliminating collaboration, it means making time for work that requires focus and flow.

• Audit recurring meetings. Review frequency, duration, and attendees. Cancel low-impact meetings or shorten those that don’t consistently fill their time.

• Cluster meetings to protect maker time. Schedule meetings in blocks to preserve larger chunks of uninterrupted work time.

• Encourage async-first communication. Use documentation, updates, and recorded demos to reduce the need for live meetings.

• Clarify attendance expectations. Empower team members to skip optional meetings when focus time is more valuable.

• Measure impact, not just presence. Use Calendar Fragmentation and output metrics to ensure reduced meeting time translates into better delivery—not disengagement.

Meetings are essential, but when unmanaged, they erode focus and productivity. Tracking Hours in Meetings helps teams create space for engineering work to actually happen.