Meetings are a waste of time.  Here's why:

• They convey only a tiny amount of information per minute
• They usually have a vague agenda leaving nobody sure of the goal
• They require a large amount of preperation that most people don't have time for
• They pretty much always drift off subject
• They often include one idiot who inevitably gets his turn to waste everyone's time with nonsense
• They procreate.  One meeting leads to another meeting, to another meeting, to a...

What makes them the biggest waste of time though is the fact they are scheduled in 30 minute or one hour chunks, because that's how the scheduling software works. 

When did you last receive a seven minute Outlook invite?  If it only takes seven minutes to acheive a goal, then seven minutes should be enough, but somehow meetings very rarely are before their allotted time.

If you schedule a one hour meeting and you invite ten people to attend, that's not a one hour meeting!  That's a ten hour meeting, ten hours of productivity swapped for a one hour meeting.  If you take into account the time to stop what you're doing, go somewhere else and meet, and resume what you were doing beforehand it's probably closer to 15 hours.

If you absolutely must get together (and conference calls won't do) then try and make you meeting a productive one by sticking to these rules:

• Invite the minimum amount of people.  If you are unsure if somebody is needed, don't invite them.
• Always have a clear agenda and distribute it to the attendees
• Begin with a specific problem
• Always end on time