Stop Accepting Lunch Meetings - Your Calendar Isn't a Democracy

I start work at 8am. One coffee, no food until lunch. By 11:30am, I'm counting down to that break. Then BAM! someone books a 12pm meeting and blocks the entire lunch hour. "Sorry for the lunchtime meeting, I will keep it quick" you often hear... That's BS. It's filled with unnecessary content and chances are... they aren't really sorry.

Now I have two choices: go hungry and push through my lunch hour & afternoon running on empty, or rearrange my entire calendar & plans to accommodate one person's scheduling convenience. To me, neither option is acceptable.

So as a rule, I stopped accepting lunch meeting invites. Not most of them - all of them.

The Real Cost of Convenience

Meetings have become the default answer to everything. Need to discuss something? Book a meeting. Want an update? Schedule a catch-up. Someone mentions an idea in Slack? Let's find time to talk about it.

The problem isn't collaboration. The problem is that we've stopped asking whether the meeting needs to exist at all, and we've definitely stopped asking whether it needs to exist right now, during the one hour most people use to refuel.

When you book a lunch meeting, you're not just taking an hour. You're forcing someone to choose between basic sustenance and appearing uncooperative. That's not urgent - that's lazy scheduling.

How I Handle It Now

I used to just suck it up. Then I tried working around it, shifting my lunch to 1pm or eating at my desk while half-listening to someone's update that could've been an email or message.

Now I have a system:

First offence: I send a message explaining I don't take lunch meetings and suggest alternative times.

Second offence: I reject the invite outright with a note to reschedule.

Genuine urgency: If someone can actually articulate why it definitively needs to be during lunch - not just that it's convenient for them or the only time they could find open schedules, but actually urgent - I'll consider it. The reality? That happens maybe every one or two months.

The interesting thing? When you push back, people either realise it wasn't urgent at all, or they finally explain the real reason they need to talk. Both outcomes are better than silently accepting another hour of your day disappearing.

Meetings Should Justify Their Existence

Here's what I've learned: if someone can't tell you why a meeting needs to happen during lunch specifically, it doesn't need to happen during lunch at all.

Meetings should be based on priorities, but they shouldn't consume your entire day - especially the parts where you need to eat and look after yourself.