The average executive in the U.S. spends 23 hours a week in meetings, up from 10 hours in the 1960s.

• That’s according to a recent study published in the MIT Sloan Management Review.

Why it matters: We’re over-scheduled. Hours spent in meetings — many of which could be shortened or canceled entirely — are leaving little time to be productive and creative.

Driving the news: Corporate America’s meeting madness intensified due to the pandemic, when many leaders responded to remote and hybrid work by adding check-ins and meetings to bring people together.

• But video meetings can be even more tiring and tedious than in-person ones. And soon we became all too familiar with Zoom fatigue.
• Since 2020, the time spent in Teams meetings increased by 252% and Zoom meetings increased by 3,300%, yet productivity levels saw the inverse effect, Axios' Eleanor Hawkins reports.

What’s happening: Now, a number of companies are fighting meeting bloat and giving employees time back.

• Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke recently mandated a calendar purge that will eliminate more than 76,500 hours of corporate meetings.
• The tobacco company Reynolds American Inc. had planned a 90-minute town hall to announce companywide restructuring plans, but decided to scrap the meeting and send around a 10-minute video instead, The Wall Street Journal notes.

Go deeper.

Finish Line reader Dan P. sent in this fabulous map:

• "Actually quite rare and perhaps valuable, but not as precious as the thoughts it stirs in me."
• "A map of Ancient Greece, circa 1858, gifted to me by a cousin from Aegina. I look at it and think of my grandparents, who came to the U.S. in 1915, from the Peloponnesus, and I know that I exist in this time and place because of them."