Recurring meetings accumulate. Each was created for a reason, few are ever cancelled, and after a couple of years a team can spend a substantial share of its week in synchronisation rituals whose original purpose has passed.
Ask what decision it produces
A meeting that reliably produces decisions is doing work. One that produces status updates is distributing information, which is usually better done in writing where it can be read at a convenient time and referred back to.
If neither happens, the meeting has become a habit.
Coordination meetings often signal bad boundaries
When two teams must meet weekly to stay aligned, the usual cause is a dependency between them that should not exist. The meeting is treating the symptom.
Fixing the boundary — a clearer interface, a self-service platform, moving a responsibility — removes the need rather than managing it.
Escalation meetings signal unclear ownership
A standing meeting where decisions get made because the right person is finally in the room means nobody has authority to decide alone.
Naming a decision owner is faster, and it does not require everyone else to attend.
Write first, meet only when needed
A short written proposal, circulated in advance, resolves most questions without a meeting. The ones it does not resolve are exactly the ones worth discussing live, and the discussion starts from a shared position rather than from scratch.
Expire them deliberately
Give every recurring meeting an end date and require a reason to renew. The default should be that it stops, not that it continues, because the effort of cancelling is otherwise higher than the effort of attending.
The question is not whether a meeting is useful. It is whether it is more useful than the uninterrupted time it consumes, which is a considerably higher bar.