The framework should be simple: what are you getting out of a meeting? It’s obviously reasonable if you’re helping someone else with the meeting. But even that time spent in such meetings can add up just as much as in any other meeting. You really have to think about it that way.
For years, my approach has been that meetings cost a lot of money. Travel time to the meeting (even if you’re i the same building), putting the brakes on effective work to stop, change gears and prepare for a meeting and then the time spent in the meeting.
Finally, there’s the hourly cost of each person in attendance. Modern day tech workers make $30-$50 an hour before benefits. Asking 10 people to join an hour long meeting with 10 minutes buffer on each side for travel / preparation can cost a company $1,000.
Now, is that meeting going to yield $1,000 in revenue? That’s very difficult to measure but this has caused me to have meetings very rarely. I attend a lot of meetings and decline a few that I know are not going to benefit from my presence. I never organize 1-hour long meetings and I always clearly mark who is optional and required. My direct reports have a no-laptop rule in meetings. We’re done in 30 minutes and I meet with everyone at once and then focus on ad-hoc 5 minute chats every day to catch up with them.