I don’t do more than 3 meetings a week.

That’s what I used to do on a Monday morning.

But packing one’s agenda with a lot of meeting is not a great way to get things done.

Meetings have become the “go-to” thing to do. Anything to discuss? Let’s jump on a call. We don’t know each other but we might have some joint opportunities to exploit? Let’s explore synergies in a one-hour meeting.

The thing is that being too gentle with meetings leaves you with less time for things that move the needle.

Most people compensate by overworking, or actually just doing the work they didn’t do due to distractions.

This has a cost we don’t often want to recognize: fatigue, mental exhaustion, lack of clarity, burn out, poor physical shape, lack of ideas, delays, poor decision making, etc.

3 meetings per week as a rule avoids this.

90% of requests can stay a DM or an email rather than a meeting.

Urgent things can be an immediate 5-min call rather than following a 45-min schedule just because this time has been blocked in the agenda.

Productivity comedians want you to apply magical techniques to “hack” your calendar, optimize every single task, have an AI-powered calendar assistant. This is all BS. The best productivity tools are very simple and they lie in saying no and being disciplined with commitments.

This doesn’t mean never allowing for more flexibility (if I need to hire someone, I might proactively look for 10 calls a week). But it’s a nice default for handling incoming requests, and prioritizing what matters.