Remote work promised more freedom. So why does it feel like we’re always trying to find a time to talk with eachother?
Remote work has made it possible for people to collaborate across cities, countries and time zones. But while location is no longer a barrier, something subtler has taken its place. The constant, invisible drag of scheduling.
For most remote teams, setting up a single meeting across calendars, priorities, and time zones can take longer than the meeting itself. It’s a quiet productivity killer. And most of us don’t even notice it’s happening.
Studies show that remote knowledge workers spend an average of 2–3 hours each week managing meetings. That’s more than 10 hours a month per person not spent in meetings, but simply coordinating them.
The hidden complexity behind simple logistics
Scheduling sounds easy: pick a time, send an invite. But in a remote context, it’s rarely that simple.
You’re not just juggling availability. You’re navigating meeting fatigue, focus time, project urgency and differing expectations about when and how people should meet. When every teammate works slightly differently and is on a slightly different clock, calendars become puzzles. And solving them often falls on whoever needs the meeting most.
A study published in Management Science found that the more collaborative a team is, the more time they waste trying to coordinate. It’s not just the number of meetings that’s the issue, it’s the friction around making them happen.
This is especially true in distributed teams, where the lack of informal alignment (like hallway chats or spontaneous check-ins) makes meetings the main engine for momentum. And when scheduling those meetings is slow, so is everything else.
Why remote meeting fatigue starts before the meeting begins
MIT Sloan’s recent exploration of remote meeting dynamics reveals another key insight: most of what makes a meeting successful happens before it starts.
This includes setting clear goals, selecting the right participants and choosing a time that doesn’t disrupt everyone’s rhythm. Yet that last piece often gets the least attention.
When teams spend days trying to find a workable slot, it introduces friction and delay. And by the time the meeting happens, the urgency may have passed, the energy may have dipped or the context might be lost.
In short: bad scheduling doesn’t just waste time. It dilutes impact.
Your team app isn’t solving this
You might think, “We use a team app, we’re covered.” But most team collaboration tools aren’t designed to handle complex scheduling. They help track tasks, centralize notes and manage communication. But when it comes to setting up remote meetings, most still rely on a manual approach.
You’re toggling between your team app, a calendar, a messaging platform and maybe a Doodle or Calendly link. It’s fragmented, inefficient and easy to forget who confirmed what, or when.
In a distributed setting, this patchwork slows decision-making and increases the risk of misalignment.
Coordination should never be the bottleneck
The best remote teams aren’t necessarily the most structured. They’re the most fluid. They move quickly because they reduce friction between intention and action. And nowhere is that friction more common than in scheduling.
If your team is losing 10+ hours per person per month to calendar ping-pong, it’s worth asking “what would it look like if scheduling happened in the background? What if your team app didn’t just hold your tasks, but helped orchestrate your time?”
We’re getting closer to that possibility. But recognizing the cost of coordination is the first step toward fixing it.
In the next post, we’ll look at what’s possible when remote meetings are powered by smarter, more dynamic scheduling systems. And why it’s not just about saving time, but protecting your team’s momentum.
