Why rescheduling meetings cost more than you think

"It's just one meeting—how bad can rescheduling be?"

There's a meme floating around the internet that shows that the only meeting of the day was an hour long, but preparing for the call and recovering from the call took the other seven hours of the day. It's funny because it's true. Meetings don't just occupy a time slot—they claim your mental space before and after.

Even if you're easygoing, rescheduling meetings isn't just disrupting your calendar events. It wastes time and slows momentum for you and everyone else involved.

The hidden costs of rescheduling

In some cases, rescheduling is a waste of time. Rescheduling a meeting involves more than dragging an event to another spot on your calendar. There are the back-and-forth messages, the endless availability checks, the new invite, and often another round of confirmation. It can take longer to find a new time than the meeting itself.

There's also the opportunity cost because you're delaying decisions. For example, you might miss a window—getting a client signature or sharing time-sensitive updates.

And let's not forget the mental strain. Rescheduling breaks the flow of your day. You could be mentally prepared for that conversation or carve out time around it for follow-ups. Now, it's all shifted, and your focus goes with it.

A tax on productivity

One person rescheduling might not seem like a big deal, but the impact grows fast when it involves multiple people. Suddenly, others need to shift their calendars too. Project leads adjust deliverables. Managers rethink timelines. That 30-minute reschedule has now taken an hour out of everyone's day.

This ripple effect becomes a tax on productivity in teams where coordination is critical. It slows collaboration, confuses workflows, and distracts people from deep, focused work.

And when rescheduling becomes the norm? The team is constantly reacting instead of moving forward.

Rescheduling also hurts morale

Frequent changes in schedule don't just cost time, but trust. When you or others constantly move meetings, it can signal that you don't value other people's time. That's especially important in client relationships, where consistency is a marker of professionalism.

Within the team, this pattern can chip away at morale. People feel less committed to meetings that seem optional. Eventually, the habit of rescheduling creates friction where there should be flow.

Be intentional when it comes to scheduling

All this points to one thing: being intentional about scheduling can unlock time and clarity. It doesn't mean locking down your calendar rigidly—it means using tools and habits that make it easier to get it right the first time.

When you communicate your availability, automate reminders, and let others book meetings based on real-time schedules, the need to reschedule drops dramatically. That results in fewer interruptions and friction.

Where Doodle fits in

With tools like Group Polls, 1:1s, and Sign-up Sheets, a scheduling tool like Doodle makes it easy to align on time without the back-and-forth. 

Your availability is up-to-date, and meeting reminders help keep things on track. Everything is in one place because your scheduling tool integrates with other tools like Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Stripe. 

It's not a magic wand, but it does help reduce the churn. And in a setting where reschedules eat up more time than we realize, that can be a serious win.