You don’t HAVE to spend your work days hopping from meeting to meeting

In this week’s edition of “You have the life you’re willing to put up with” we discuss meeting load.

Do you feel like your job is to go to meetings? Is quiet deep work a rare treat for you? Does your energy level plummet when you look at your calendar in the morning?

You don’t have to keep living like that. You’re not as powerless as you think.

I’ve written a lot about this before. To name a few:

• Block off more of your calendar
• My ideal work week
• Your calendar should be an allowlist, not a blocklist
• Take pride in skipping meetings
• What meeting do you dread the most?
• Want a short meeting? Don’t end early, start late.
• Getting serious about breaks between meetings
• 40% of the average life isn’t worth living
• Never put up with low engagement meetings
• Your leverage vs. energy map

But the gist is that once you decide to stop tolerating it, it starts to feel changeable. You could:

• Switch from weekly to bi-weekly 1-1s. This is in fact a thing that humans can do.
• Flat out decline everything that isn’t absolutely crucial for you to attend.
• If you can’t drop it entirely, only attend every other session.
• When someone asks you to meet, say you’d prefer to try async first.
• Ignore people the first time they ask to meet. Only respond if they ask again.
• Set a max number of hours you’re willing to meet per week, and prioritize inside that time box.
• Declare meeting bankruptcy. Decline everything and only re-accept things as they become critical.

There’s a version of your job that doesn’t involve you spending 90% of your time in meetings, if you’re willing to put your foot down.