An hour-long meeting takes an hour, but "takes up people's time" is something people say about meetings if e.g. half the attendees get something useful out of t

An hour-long meeting takes an hour, but "takes up people's time" is something people say about meetings if e.g. half the attendees get something useful out of the first half hour and the other half of the attendees get something useful out of the second half hour. It's a judgment, and if you can engage with the details of what went right and wrong with this week's meetings, then it's possible to tune next week's so the attendees judge them to be "useful" instead of something that "takes up people's time".