Back to back to back to back meetings run me down

I had meetings from 1:00 to 5:00 today, with no pause in between any of them. Prior to going Agile, that sort of thing used to happen to me frequently, and we still have managers whose calendars look like that (except starting at 9:00 or 9:30) most days. But one of the several improvements in my job in the last couple months has been the reduced # of meetings, ironically coinciding with some of the people on my Feature Team complaining about the increase in how many meetings they have to go to! What they don't seem to appreciate about their situation is the fact that, yes, they're going to more meetings now, but that's simply the cost that comes along with being more involved in decision-making and being able to exert more influence. I'm always willing to go to meetings, as needed, but have really enjoyed the fact that I now go to maybe 2 to 4 hours of meetings per day, rather than the 6 to 8 hours I was used to. And most of those people seeing an increase in this area are now seeing 1 or 2 hours per day spent in meeting rooms, which apparently is considered excessive by some. To be fair: they all have specific deliverables to complete every day, whereas my accountabilities tend to be less tangible (it's good to be me!).

But what really drained me today was the fact that the last 3 of the 4 hours of meetings today were all high-participation events: two were Retrospectives (on different topics) and one was an animated discussion between the Agile Manager (me) and a couple other Feature Teams on topics that are hot buttons right now: Automated Regression and Acceptance Criteria. I was running on fumes by the time 5:00 rolled around. Not the sort of afternoon I like to have, all things considered!

So if you're reading this and have some extra energy you're not doing anything with, please send it my way!