I'm rereading (listening) to Rework for the 3rd time. It's been about a month since I last absorbed this artfully crafted piece of wisdom from Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37Signals. People who read my blog know that I hate meetings. I'm ok with the 5 minute stand-ups. I'm ok with the 22 minute meeting, when necessary.
The painful reality is one poorly organized meeting can suck more time and energy than a week of good meetings. How many meetings do you go to in a week? Do you really need to be there? Is there a published goal-based agenda? Not going to meetings is like not watching CNN for a week. If it's really important, someone will tell you the news. Otherwise, you find yourself commonly hearing the same old thing over and over again. Your time is more valuable than that. Go do something else.