Meetings burned me out 🤕

In partnership with

This year I quit my tech job.

Burnout pushed me out. And meetings were a big reason why.

We love joking, “This meeting could’ve been an email.”

What we don’t love is fixing the problem.

For me, burnout had a clear trail back to meetings:

• Wasted time.

• Loss of direction.

• Participants showing up unprepared (and blaming busyness).

And yet, ask anyone in a big online team and they’ll tell you: meetings are their job.

AI Meeting Assistants

AI meeting assistants promised relief.

But I’m not so sure. I have a deep love/hate relationship with them.

Love: they let me be more present. I still jot down key notes by hand, my key takeaways. But I’m no longer anxious about catching every detail because I can review a transcript later.

Hate: I’m really not a fan of bots joining every meeting. Or joining in my place. Especially with external parties, presence matters! If I’m not there, my assistant shouldn’t be either. Plus, people tend to forget about the security risks attached to them.

Tools, like today’s sponsor, can be extremely productive and secure.

But they don’t fix culture. Clear rules do.

Some Ground Rules

So what actually helps? Here are a few simple ground rules I like to follow:

Have a purpose

• Clear agenda and a single goal in the invite: “We’re here to decide X by Y”

• No purpose? No meeting.

Be on time

• Join a couple minutes early. And don’t let your AI assistant join before you. It isn’t replacing you, it’s tailing you!

Be present

• Listen and you’ll have fewer “can you repeat that?” moments and fewer follow‑up meetings to clarify what was decided.

Be prepared

• Do your homework. Skim the agenda, add your inputs, and bring one decision, deliverable, or one open question.

• I’ve wasted so much time in meetings where people running the show rushed from another call and blamed busyness for not being ready.

Have a clear outcome

• End with next steps/action items: owners, deadlines, and a two‑sentence decision record (a tip I was recently given)

If these rules are followed, then deploying AI meeting assistants to capture notes/actions can be a major boost.

Final Thoughts

If every meeting you took part in was transcribed, searchable, and accessible to your organization… how would you show up?

• Would you prepare differently?

• Would your agenda be tighter?

• Would your decisions be clearer and easier to reference?

That’s the bar I try to hold myself to.

When transcripts, notes, action items are centralized (and permissioned), accountability becomes a feature of the culture.

And that’s a strong statement. But this podcast changed how I view culture and productivity in the asynchronous workplace model.

Listen with an open mind cause you may not agree with everything, but the culture Sam Corcos has built at Levels is fascinating.

Next time I’m in a big team, AI meeting assistants will have a role, but only in a way that’s strategic, secure, and supports a healthy culture

What’s one thing you’d change about the way your team runs online meetings? Hit reply and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.

eSee you next week,
George

P.S. Your opinion means a lot! Totally optional, but a quick testimonial really helps the newsletter grow.

Here’s a message from today’s sponsor:

Don’t be the one putting your company at risk 😳

Most meetings include confidential data - from project details to client information.

But not every AI notetaker protects that information with the security your company deserves.

If the AI notetaker you’re using trains their AI models on your team’s conversations, you could be putting your company at risk without realizing it.

This AI Meeting Notetaker Security Checklist helps you avoid that.

In just two minutes, you’ll learn the 7 checks to ensure your team’s AI meeting notes stay private and secure.

Don’t let your meetings become someone else’s dataset.

Get the checklist