I've started asking one question before every meeting and it's changed how I work

I used to accept every meeting that showed up on my calendar. Someone sent an invite, I clicked accept, I showed up. I never asked why I was there.

A few weeks ago I started asking one question before accepting: "What decision are we making in this meeting?"

The number of meetings I've declined since then is genuinely embarrassing. Not because the meetings were bad.

Because there was no decision to make. They were just... talking. Status updates that could have been an email.

Brainstorms with no output. Catch-ups that existed because they'd always existed.

I'm not saying all meetings are useless. But most of them are. And asking that one question made it obvious which ones mattered.

Do you have a filter for which meetings you accept? Or do you just show up to everything like I used to?