If there is one thing I have learned it's that the quality of communication in a team usually makes or breaks the project. The quality of communication with a customer makes or breaks the relationship.
It's important to remember that humans have been communicating for thousands of years without email, chat servers or telephones. Our brains are hard-wired to respond to facial expression, tone of voice and body language.
All of this is lost with computer-mediated communication channels. Your post prompted me to look at this study which you may also find interesting: http://www.academia.edu/538403/Face-to-face_Versus_Computer-...
Don't get me wrong, meetings for the sake of meetings are a waste of time but that's not to say that they do not have their place.
-Inbox Pause
-Thursday Meetings
-and Do 1 Thing a Day.
I personally use:
-Archive Everything
-Never have meetings... ever.
-and Prioritize
My email is like Chat unfortunately, so much back and forth on projects I really can't afford to only chime in once a day or nothing would ever get done. But everything gets archived unless I'm working on it actively, or I still need to reply.
Meetings... I never meet in person now. The time suck is just horrible awful miserable. I will occasionally have a phone meeting, but they aren't much better, but at least I don't have to take time to shave and drive.
1 thing a day would be nice unless your world consists of 200 little tiny things. So, I prioritize and block out hours to get things done. Then I DO apply 1-thing-a-day to my side-projects so they stay fresh.
To each their own.