Back-to-back meetings: the 8-minute bathroom problem (and 4 ways remote workers solve it).

The first time I noticed the problem, my calendar had six back-to-back calls and a 9-to-5 wall of color blocks with no gaps. Around 11am I realized I had been holding it since the morning stand-up and the next clear window was at 1:15pm. I did the math. Two more hours.

This is not, by itself, a tragedy. But it is also not unusual. Microsoft’s long-running Work Trend Index data and a 2023 Slack Workforce study both flagged a quiet shift: remote workers schedule 15 to 20 percent more meetings than their in-office peers, and the gaps between those meetings have been compressing since 2020. There are now millions of people whose calendars literally do not contain eight free minutes between 9am and lunch.

People solve this. They have to. After two years of asking around in remote-work communities and watching how my own team handles it, there are basically four tactics. Each has a real cost. None is universally correct.

1. Ask for buffer time

The grown-up answer. Many calendar systems support a default “Speedy Meeting” option that ends 30-minute meetings at the 25 and 60-minute meetings at the 50, leaving a structural gap. Google Calendar has it built in. Outlook has it under Calendar Options. Some companies have adopted it as policy.

The problem is that it only works if everyone you meet with also uses it. The moment one teammate ignores the convention and books a standard 30-minute slot at the bottom of your “speedy” one, the buffer evaporates. In practice this works inside small, well-managed teams and falls apart the second you have cross-org meetings.

Cost

Low. It’s mostly a coordination problem, not a political one. If your org won’t adopt it, you can still set your defaults and quietly end your own meetings five minutes early.

2. Say “brb, two minutes” in the chat and mute

The unilateral answer. You type “brb” or “sorry, real quick,” mute your mic, turn off your camera, and walk away. When you come back you flip both back on, apologize briefly, and rejoin.

This is fine for most teams most of the time. The cost is purely political and varies wildly by manager. On some teams the “brb” message is so normalized that no one notices. On others — usually ones where the manager has a strong opinion about cameras being on and engagement being “visible” — repeatedly dropping off camera gets logged in some informal mental file labeled not really present. You will not see that file. You will feel it at review time.

Cost

Variable. Manager-dependent. The very people most likely to schedule you into back-to-back calls are also the ones most likely to mind when you step out of them.

3. Decline meetings

The high-leverage answer, and the highest-risk one. Look at the invite. Decide it’s optional. Decline. Send a one-line note saying you’ll catch the notes async.

This works for senior people and people in functions where output is legible (engineering, design, sales pipeline). It does not work for people whose job is partly to be in rooms — managers, account executives, anyone in a coordinating role. There is also a known-unknown problem: meetings sometimes contain information that gets weaponized later, and not being in the meeting puts you a step behind.

A specific tactic worth borrowing: instead of declining outright, accept-tentative and message the organizer directly to ask “do you actually need me, or is the notes-doc enough?” Half the time the answer is the notes-doc.

Cost

High but only over time. A single decline costs nothing. A pattern of declines reshapes how people see you, for better or worse.

4. Use a virtual camera loop

The technical answer. You pre-record a 60-to-90-second loop of yourself sitting at your desk, looking present. You pipe it into Zoom as a virtual camera. When you need eight minutes — a bathroom break, the kettle, accepting a delivery, a moment to think — you switch your camera source to the loop, mute, and go. When you come back, you switch back to live and unmute.

The honest version of the tradeoff: this works extremely well in the large category of meetings where your role is to listen, react occasionally, and be visibly present. It does not work in conversations where you are an active participant, because those conversations require you to talk. It is also a bad fit for one-on-ones, customer-facing calls, or anything that involves accountability for a specific verbal commitment.

The other thing worth saying out loud: a virtual camera loop is a tool, and like any tool it can be used in ways that are fine and ways that aren’t. Using it to step away for water is fine. Using it to mislead a manager about whether you’re working is a different question that the tool itself can’t answer. I wrote a bit more about that line in the cameras-always-on note.

Cost

Low if you record a good loop (see how to record one that doesn’t look fake), bounded by your own judgment about when to use it.

What I actually do

A combination. I push for Speedy Meeting defaults in any team I control. I decline whatever I can. I use “brb” for genuinely small interruptions in casual meetings. And I have a MeetingDouble loop running in the meetings where I’m a listener and I need eight minutes back. The loop is not the first answer. It is the last line of defense when the first three failed.

The thing nobody seems to want to say is that the calendar is the problem. The four tactics above are all coping strategies for a situation where someone, somewhere, scheduled too many meetings. Until that changes, having a few tools in your back pocket is reasonable.