Deciding what code to write is not a waste, writing code that is not needed is far more wasteful. Defining that as "in meetings" is not very productive.

In any given day, I may have a number of meetings; I have to write any variety of documentation; get into discussions about whether or not a particular requirement is correct and stated properly; answer technical questions of the "what if..." type; investigate strange behavior to see if it's a bug or just normal, but misunderstood behavior; review other people's designs, code, or test cases, etc...

When all that's done, there's not a lot of time coding.

No, it's not frustrating: it's just part of the job. I mentioned in another topic a few days ago that my dept. won't hire people who are "just coders." We expect developers we hire to be able to take on all aspects of the job from gathering requirements though final test, if necessary.