Khaos Inception
Day 06/30
Live • Global
Unit: human-years

Meeting Doomsday Clock

Human-years of life being lost to meetings, in real time, globally. You opened this page. The counter started.

Human-years lost since you opened this page

0.00

Ticking at 1.129 human-years per second

Since Jan 1, 2026

—

human-years

Meetings in progress

5,936,073

right now, globally

Per-year rate

35,616,438

human-years / year

The Math

Based on Gartner's estimate of over 1 billion knowledge workers globally, averaging 6 hours per week in meetings (the knowledge-worker segment specifically — broader employee surveys put it at 11.3 hrs/wk, executives at ~23). That works out to ~312 billion person-hours of meetings per year. Divided by 8,760 hours in a calendar year, that is roughly 35,616,438 human-years of life burned annually — 1.129 per second. Meeting count assumes 6 attendees per meeting (Stanford research puts the optimal range at 5-8). Estimates are rough. The order of magnitude is not.

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