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If you feel like most of your meetings at work are a waste of time, the good--and bad--news is that you're onto something. One survey found that 50 percent of meeting time is unproductive while up to 25 percent of meetings are spent on irrelevant issues. The same way we put deliberate thought into building businesses for our customers, we need to be intentional about planning meetings for their participants. A successful meeting is designed with its participants in mind.

Here are four tips for designing a brain-friendly meeting.

The one-on-one meeting is the most important tool you have as a manager. Learn how you can have better one-on-ones with this guide (free template included).

In the ideal meeting, all attendees participate, contributing diverse points of view and thinking together to reach new insights. But few meetings live up to this ideal, in large part because not everyone is able to effectively contribute. We recently asked employees at a large global bank a question: “When you have a contribution to make in a meeting, how often are you able to do so?” Only 35% said they felt able to make a contribution all the time.

There are three segments of the workforce who are routinely overlooked: introverts, remote workers, and women. As a leader, chances are you’re not actively silencing these voices — it’s more likely that hidden biases at play. Let’s look at these biases and what you can do to mitigate their influence.

The unconscious bias: Smart people think on their feet.

What happens: A program manager calls a meeting to think through a resourcing issue. She summarizes the situation, shares results of a recent staffing analysis, and then tees up the discussion. This works great for extroverted thinkers (those that talk to think). But from the get-go, the introverted thinkers (those who think to talk) are at a disadvantage....

More companies are now embracing "agile" meetings and daily check-ins to make their teams more productive and efficient. The hard rule? Keep it under five minutes or be ready to be rudely cut off in front of your peers.

While some argue this laser approach to meetings won't get anything accomplished, The Wall Street Journal recently published a story that convincingly declares otherwise.

Time is too precious to waste in high-demand business settings. The old ritual of booking conference rooms and clogging calendars with 30 or 60-minutes of drudgery is being replaced by five-minute huddles where teams cut to the chase and make decisions on the spot.

Communication helps managers drive employee engagement. One-on-one meetings are more important than ever to grow engagement and improve employee retention.

Of all our available resources, everyone has the same number of hours in a day. Some, however, happen to get more done. Are they faster or smarter? Do they have more help? Perhaps. But they’ve also learned tricks that can help them stretch time and eliminate the unimportant.

Here are six things super-productive people do every day to maximize their results and success.

If you think you have a lot of meetings today, you're in good company. One Harvard Business School professor estimates that there will be 11 million meetings taking place today in the United States. The unproductive ones (an estimated third) can cost a company an astounding amount of money. In a 2014 study of time usage, Bain & Company found that just one meeting of mid-level managers per week could cost an organization as much as $15 million per year.

In an effort not to waste any more time—or money—on fruitless meetings, we’ve pulled together some pro tips for making any meeting more productive.