This meeting could have been an email: the game

Email it at the last second

You sit at your desk with a report to write. Meeting reminders pop up on your monitor, 15 in a day, one at a time. Every one could have been an email.

Each reminder counts down to its meeting on a ring. Press Could be an email, or Space, and it goes back as an email. The later you press, the more focus time you bank.

The glow

In the last moment before the meeting, the reminder glows and says Join now. A press in the glow is a close call. It pays the most, and a paper plane and a stamp say so. The glow looks the same and lasts the same time on every reminder.

If the ring runs out, you are pulled into the meeting. A block lands on your calendar and that is a strike. Three strikes and the rest of your day is meetings.

The luck

Every countdown is its own length, and the spread gets wider through the day. The clock always runs at the same pace. Some meetings get moved up mid-countdown: the clock turns red, shakes and the ring jumps ahead. A jump never lands in the glow.

Tick Take your time and the day runs at half speed. Pause stops the clock at any point.

Focus banked and calendar left

An early press banks 1 to 5 minutes of focus, more the further the ring has filled. A close call banks 10 to 20, more the nearer the meeting. Three close calls in a row lift the streak to x2, six to x3. An early press or a strike steps it down one.

At 5 pm the free time left on your calendar is added, one point a minute. Each meeting you were pulled into takes an hour off it.

A perfect day scores 1,200: every press a close call at the last moment, and all 8 hours free. The result lists your close calls, the focus banked and the calendar left, then the meetings you were pulled into, your best streak and your early emails.

Exceeds expectations takes 1,080 or more with no strike. Any strike keeps the grade at Meets or below, and three strikes is a performance plan.

Daily and solo rounds

Everyone gets the same reminders and the same countdowns on the same day. A solo round draws new ones.

Expense Report checks receipts against a policy, and the games to play at work hub lists the other daily rounds.

What the numbers say

A survey of 5,000 knowledge workers on 4 continents, published in 2024, found that 62% often attend meetings whose invite states no goal. 80% said most of their meetings could be done in half the time. 77% often sit in meetings that end with a decision to book a follow-up meeting.

Calendar data from 2024 puts the most common meeting length at 30 minutes, 45% of all meetings. Among recurring meetings, 64% have no agenda at all.

When the week fills up

Meetings pile up on Tuesdays, which hold 23% of the weekly load, and Fridays drop to 16%. Meetings after 8 pm grew 16% in a year.

Standups, touch bases and FYIs

In Scrum, the team’s daily meeting is a 15-minute event. A circle back in the subject line is a fair warning of what the meeting holds.

A note that says “as discussed” is the calendar’s version of per my last email. To say any of this out loud at work without starting a feud, the how to professionally say it phrasebook has the polite version.