We all know the feeling as a project manager: the dread of a day filled with back-to-back meetings. You charge into the morning hoping for a cancellation, a rain check, or for one of those stacked meetings to end early so you can take a quick break, breathe for a moment, or grab a fresh cup of coffee.
Microsoft reported that since February 2020, people are in three times more Teams meetings and calls per week. That’s a 192% increase. Many books, frameworks, and company policies have tackled the problem of meeting overload, so we’re not going to pile on here. Instead, I want to share some practical advice for handling those days when meeting stacks are unavoidable. Ideally, you’ll avoid them altogether, but when they hit, you’ll have a strategy to stay calm and effective. These tips are also designed to help prevent clusters from forming in the first place so you can keep your projects and your work-life balance steady.
As someone who has run these meeting marathons regularly, I’ve learned a few important lessons that kept me sane and still allowed me to do good work, even when the candle was burning at both ends. Here’s what happens when stacked meetings persist, and none of it is good:
• You only prepare properly for the first meeting.
• Overall meeting quality suffers.
• Notes are less likely to be taken or accurate.
• Important follow-up work is delayed or forgotten.
• Burnout becomes inevitable.
To avoid all that, here are five strategies that helped me maintain both my sanity and my quality of work.
Track Your Workload
Staying ahead of burnout is crucial. Don’t wait until you’re frayed at the edges to make the case that you’re overscheduled. As a leader, I always preferred when team members came to me well before things broke down. Scaling is natural in every business, and if you don’t clearly communicate your workload in advance, everyone loses. You burn out, projects suffer, and the company ends up scrambling to backfill before new talent can ramp up.
So measure and communicate your workload. Identify a few clear metrics that show your project management velocity, and make them part of your weekly one-on-ones or leadership updates. This makes you look prepared, helps you understand your optimal pace, and gives your team visibility into when it’s time to scale.
Think about tracking:
• Time spent on each project
• Average project length
• Time in meetings, follow-up, and reporting
• Any other meaningful areas
This data helps you determine how many concurrent projects you can realistically manage and where your time is disappearing. It also arms your colleagues and leaders with the information they need to build in scaling budgets so new hires are added before you hit a breaking point.
Plan Ahead
Most project briefs outline responsibilities, milestones, timelines, risks, and more. What’s often missing is the project management bandwidth needed to oversee it all. That’s where your own tracking pays off. If you’ve been measuring velocity, you can better forecast your workload and predict when projects or meetings might start clustering.
How does that help on a day of back-to-back meetings? It doesn’t, at least not in the moment. But it does help you anticipate those intense stretches so you can plan ahead, ask for support, or redistribute responsibilities before you hit the wall.
Rely on Agendas
I’ll admit it: I’m often guilty of punting on agendas. It’s easy to let them slide when you’re rushing to prepare. But here’s the truth: the agenda is often the most productive artifact of a meeting.
With a solid agenda, people stay focused, on time, and on purpose. Without one, meetings drift, decisions stall, and follow-up lags. Which type of meeting produces clearer decisions and next steps? Always the one with the agenda.
So make agendas a habit. Send them out early—days, not hours, in advance—and invite input from participants. This sets expectations, prevents surprises, and positions you as the person who always keeps meetings sharp and productive.
Build a Culture of Shared Accountability
Accountability is what keeps projects on track. It’s also one of the hardest parts of the job, especially early in your career. You’ll need to navigate personalities, bandwidth constraints, opinions, and egos while keeping people aligned and on schedule.
Often, stacked meetings happen because collaborators need more clarity, have introduced new requirements, or require consensus. None of that is unusual, but accountability only becomes a problem if it’s not managed.
As a project manager, you’re reliant on your team. Don’t let deadlines slide or allow half-finished work to creep in. Communicate often, be clear on expectations, provide reminders, and share the consequences when someone’s delay impacts the rest of the team. If your collaborators trust and respect you, they’ll work harder to avoid letting you down.
Implement Project Automations
Welcome to the future. Technology is evolving quickly, and keeping an eye on tools that boost productivity is a big part of the job. From meeting summaries to project health tracking, automation can help project managers shift from admin work to high-value contributions.
At Superdone, we’re focused on building AI tools that take the load off project managers. Automated meeting summaries, project health measurements, and project insights are just the start of what we’re building for high-performing teams.
Look at your workflow and identify what can be automated or streamlined. Freeing yourself from repetitive tasks gives you the space to do the deep work that actually moves projects forward.
Closing Thoughts
There’s nothing worse than a day of back-to-back meetings. But with smart planning, clear communication, and the right technology, you can minimize them and protect your sanity when they do happen.
