The Modern Leader
How many of you receive messages like this?
As you move up in leadership roles and have more direct reports, more cross-functional relationships to maintain, and more projects to track, your calendar can easily get away from you, leaving you no time to do any additional work. You get stuck in meetings with large groups of people where you never say a word. Sometimes you even get a late start on your first meeting and then every meeting thereafter is off-schedule.
It’s so easy to slip into this pattern when you don’t keep your calendar under control and set boundaries. (My calendar is the perfect example of this, so I’m also writing this as a reminder to take my own advice.) Here are some rules I follow when I chat with folks about freeing up some time on their calendar.
Is that meeting (still) really necessary?
This may sound obvious, but we have a tendency to just show up for meetings because they happen to be on our calendar, not really giving much through to whether or not this meeting still serves any purpose, or at least any purpose for ourselves.
When you find yourself in a meeting that doesn’t really involve you anymore or doesn’t require your full attention all the time, say something. Towards the end of the meeting ask if it’s still serving everyone’s needs. Or, if you recognize it is serving other’s needs but not your needs, announce at the end that you’re going to drop off the cadence of this meeting and to feel free to message you after one of these regularly occurring meetings if there are any items that pertain to you. You may find that you help others clear up space on their calendar as well!
Stack your meetings where possible.
I try to keep to specific days for 1:1s with my team vs. 1:1s with my cross-functional peers. I can mentally prepare for these meetings by grouping them back-to-back, or at least in chunks (since I have 10 direct reports). I’ll also change the cadence of cross-functional meetings if they’re better suited to run, say, bi-weekly or monthly versus weekly. But most importantly here, by stacking your meetings, you can give yourself focused “brain on” meeting time vs. “brain on” work time. (They both require your brain, but in different ways.)
Don’t skip your 1:1s with your direct reports.
These meetings are incredibly important and not the ones to remove from your calendar. When my direct reports count increased from 6 to 9 (and now 10), I opted to change the cadence of my 1:1s to every other week, but I always give the option to meet on their “off” week if they have something pressing they need to discuss. No matter what, though, these meetings do not get canceled unless one of us is out of office.
Block off time on your calendar.
Again, sounds obvious, but if you have time blocked off on your calendar, people (in theory) shouldn’t book over it. I have lunchtime blocked off because someone will inevitably try to schedule over the time when I would need to eat. I also will block off 2 hours here and there just to focus on work. No description - just “Busy” or occasionally “Do not schedule”.
Nobody is going to respect your schedule if you don’t respect it first.
I will tell people I can’t meet at certain times or days. Easy when I’m out of office, but I will often get messages that are akin to “I know you have a busy block on your calendar, but can I schedule over it for [reason]?” On occasion if absolutely necessary I will say yes, but my calendar is blocked off for a reason, and that needs to be respected. Be comfortable with saying no, find another time, or no, but you can ask me here on Slack/via email. Being on the east coast and working for a west coast company I will occasionally get added to meetings that are at 7, 7:30, or 8 PM. I like my evenings as much as the next person, and if I keep saying yes to these, I’ll never get to properly take a break.
Do what you need to do to adjust your calendar, and set a schedule to regularly revisit your recurring events to make sure they are still serving you. That meeting that could’ve been an email will keep happening if nobody speaks up.