Distraction: The Silent Killer of Meetings

Chris Terrell
Sep 18
2 min read

If it feels like the world is conspiring to interrupt you, you’re not wrong. Doorbells, cats, Slack pings, the irresistible itch to “just Google that one stat”—the modern workday is a carnival of micro-distractions. And then we take that energy into meetings, where half the room is physically present but mentally tabbed out.

Here’s the uncomfortable part: our meetings don’t just tolerate distraction—they invite it.

The "Meeting," a sitcom we’re all stuck in

A friend and I came up with a new sitcom called The Meeting. Every episode builds toward a big meeting… that we never actually see. Credits roll as the door closes. Next week’s episode? The aftermath. That’s too real. Most organizations are living this plot: the pre-meetings, the recap meetings, the recurring meetings—everything but decisions that move the work.

We tell ourselves it’s about “connection.” Especially post-COVID, that mattered. But somewhere along the way, connection quietly replaced decisiveness. We started using meetings to feel aligned rather than to get aligned.

That’s the heart of process debt: when a ritual hangs around after it’s stopped producing outcomes. The cost isn’t line-item obvious—it’s attention. Every unfocused meeting siphons focus from the work that actually pays the bills.

A tiny habit that changes the room

Try one small change: assign a rotating scribe at the start of every meeting. Not a bot, not the note-taker who always does it—the role moves, every time.

What the scribe captures is simple:

What was this meeting for?
What did we decide?
What did we not decide?
What are the 1–3 actions, who owns them, and by when?

At the end, the scribe reads back a 30-second summary. That’s it.

Why it works:

It creates consequences. If someone has to say out lou,d “we didn’t decide anything,” you’ll decide more.
It forces presence. Everyone eventually wears the scribe hat. People lean in when they know they’ll be on the hook next time.
It shrinks the agenda. When outcomes must be spoken back, bloat becomes obvious—and self-correcting.

Time is the scarce thing—act like it

Two more practical tweaks that compound the scribe habit:

Time-box for real. Run 15-minute daily touchpoints during crunch periods (two-week sprints are perfect). You’re not convening to do work—you’re unblocking work. When the meeting’s cost is low and the cadence is predictable, people bring sharper questions and fewer monologues.
Separate the connection from the decision. Keep a weekly 30-minute social/connection touchpoint if you want—cameras on, laughs encouraged. But guard decision meetings like a scarce resource. Different goals, different rules.

Don’t outsource your sharpness.

Generative tools have made it easier than ever to write the perfect email and summarize a long call. They’re great. They also dull our edge if we let them. The point of the scribe isn’t to replace your transcription app; it’s to retrain the room to produce decisions. Transcripts remember—teams decide.

If your calendar feels like an attention tax, your system is signaling. Meetings are not broken because people are lazy; they’re broken because the ritual stopped serving the result. Change the ritual.

Process Debt Truth

Process debt isn’t the hour you spent in a meeting—it’s the focus you didn’t get back.