50 Things to Do When You're Bored in a Meeting
Some meetings inform. Some meetings decide. And some exist purely so that a calendar invite could be sent. This list is for the third kind.
Before the list, one piece of practical advice that matters more than any individual item on it: the constraint is not boredom, it is recoverability. The question to ask of anything here is not "is this interesting" but "how fast can I drop it if someone says my name." That single test sorts the fifty items below into the ones that are safe and the ones that will embarrass you.
How to choose without getting caught
Three variables decide what you can get away with, and they compound.
Camera state. Off is a different universe from on. On camera, anything requiring sustained downward gaze is visible — people are far better at reading attention through a webcam than they assume they are. Off camera, the only signal you emit is your voice, and the bar drops enormously.
Attendee count. In a meeting of four, everyone is tracking everyone. In a meeting of thirty, you are functionally an audience member. The threshold sits somewhere around eight — below it, assume you are being watched.
Whether you are named on the agenda. If there is a line item with your name on it, you are not a spectator, and everything below the "genuinely useful" section is a bad idea until your item is done.
There is also a category that is simply off-limits regardless of the three variables: any meeting where someone is being reviewed, let go, or presenting work they are anxious about. The premise of everything here is that a meeting has surplus attention going spare. Sometimes it does not.
The subtle stuff (looks productive)
The safest category, because every item produces something. If you are caught, you are caught doing work — which is a materially different conversation from being caught doing a crossword.
- Play a round of buzzword bingo — quietly mark squares as people talk.
- Run the meeting cost calculator and watch the number climb.
- Write the meeting summary now, before it ends, and be the hero who sends notes first.
- Clean out your inbox to a glorious zero.
- Draft your to-do list for the rest of the day.
- Rename your messy desktop files.
- Learn three keyboard shortcuts you keep meaning to memorize.
- Outline that thing you've been procrastinating on.
- Update your task tracker so you look suspiciously on top of things.
- Practice your active-listening face in the camera's self-view.
Number three is the genuinely valuable one and deserves singling out. Whoever writes the notes defines what the meeting decided. That is real influence, it is available to anyone willing to type, and almost nobody competes for it.
The sneaky games
Higher risk, because most involve watching people closely enough that they may notice being watched. All are safe off-camera and questionable on it.
- Count how many times someone says "circle back."
- Predict who will speak next and keep score.
- Bet yourself the meeting will run over (you'll win).
- Play buzzword generator roulette and try to slip one into the chat.
- Tally the "you're on mute" incidents.
- Guess each person's background object before they explain it.
- Try to get a specific word into the conversation organically.
- Doodle a portrait of whoever is presenting.
- Invent a backstory for the one stock-photo slide.
- See how long you can go without unmuting.
The genuinely useful
Do these in the meetings you cannot escape and do not need to follow. Unlike the rest of the list, the hour actually produces something afterwards.
- Stretch your wrists and neck — your posture will thank you.
- Drink a full glass of water.
- Do a quiet box-breathing round (4 in, 4 hold, 4 out, 4 hold).
- Tidy one drawer within arm's reach.
- Water the plant that's been quietly dying.
- Unsubscribe from five newsletters.
- Back up your phone photos.
- Plan tonight's dinner (might we suggest breakfast for dinner).
- Update one password you've reused for too long.
- Write down one idea you don't want to forget.
The mind wanderers
Require no hands, no screen and no visible activity, which makes them the only category that is genuinely safe on camera in a small meeting. They are also the easiest to get lost in — the recoverability test bites hardest here, because there is no artefact to glance back at when someone says your name.
- Plan your next vacation, hour by hour.
- Design your dream home office in your head.
- Pick the walk-on song for your imaginary boxing career.
- Decide what you'd cook on a cooking competition show.
- Rank the best sandwiches you've ever eaten.
- Mentally rearrange your living room.
- Compose the perfect out-of-office reply.
- Think of a band name for every noun you hear.
- Plan the heist (purely hypothetical).
- Decide your three desert-island albums.
The gloriously petty
Keeping score against the meeting itself. Worth noting that several of these produce data you could actually use — a tally of undefined acronyms is a real observation about whether new joiners can follow anything, and a log of how long "quick questions" take is the beginning of an argument for a shorter invite.
- Keep a running count of how long the "quick question" actually takes.
- Time the gap between "let's wrap up" and actually wrapping up.
- Note every time someone repeats what the last person said.
- Track who joins late and who leaves early.
- Count the acronyms nobody defines.
- Log each "to your point…" that doesn't address the point.
- Tally the dogs, cats, and doorbells heard in the background.
- Award a silent MVP to whoever ends it early.
- Draft the email that says "as discussed" about something not discussed.
- Forward yourself this list for the next one.
The honest version
If you need this list every week, the list is not the answer. A calendar with several unescapable, unfollowable meetings on it is a fixable problem, and the fix is a conversation about the invitation rather than a better way to endure it — declining well is a learnable skill and a more durable one than any of the fifty items above.
But some meetings genuinely cannot be declined, and pretending otherwise is its own kind of unhelpful. Reorganisations create standing invites nobody has the authority to cancel. Seniority comes with rooms you must be seen in. For those, the goal is not to check out completely — it is to stay sane until something actually requires you.
When it does: unmute, say something sharp, and go right back to your bingo card.