Meetings are often the figurative ball and chain that dictate schedules. Even worse, a lot of these meetings aren’t that productive or efficient. A new survey found that employees spend an average of 18 hours a week in meetings. They say “no” to only 14% of invites even though they’d prefer to decline 31%, and those who do attend report multitasking 70% of the time. So it’s not surprising that begrudgingly going to meetings wastes $25,000 annually per employee—netting out to $101 million a year for organizations with 5,000 or more employees.

Replacing unnecessary meetings and optimizing flexibility is not just a nice-to-have, but a crucial cost- and time-saver, enabling teams of all sizes to do more work with less effort. To stay aligned and productive as you scale, it’s important to approach how you collaborate with intention.