Calendars rarely fill up all at once. They get clogged slowly, one "quick 30-minute sync" at a time.
Someone sets up a recurring weekly check-in for a project. The project ends, but the meeting stays. Then comes the bi-weekly department alignment, the daily standups, and the loosely defined brainstorming sessions. Like barnacles on a ship's hull, these recurring calendar blocks eventually slow your momentum to a crawl.
When your default response to a problem is "let's schedule a call", you are substituting motion for progress.
It is time to clear the deck. It is time to declare Meeting Bankruptcy.
1. For the Individual Contributor (IC) 🛠️
The Trap: The "Audience Member". You are invited to a one-hour meeting. For 55 minutes, you sit on mute while two other people debate a topic. You were invited "just for visibility" or out of a polite obligation. You aren't actively contributing; you are simply witnessing work happen.
The Reality: Attending a meeting just to listen is an incredibly expensive way to gather information. It drains your energy and fractures your focus.
The Fix: The Polite Decline. You have to protect your time relentlessly, but professionally.
The Agenda Filter: If an invite arrives without an agenda, do not accept it. Reply with: "I want to make sure I am prepared for this. Could you share the agenda and what you need from me?" If they can't produce one, the meeting shouldn't happen.
The Async Alternative: If you are only there to give a status update, offer to provide it beforehand. "I have a heavy focus block during this time, but I have added my updates to the shared doc. Let me know if you need me to jump in for a specific decision!"
2. For the Manager 📈
The Trap: The Synchronous "Status Update". You hold a weekly hour-long sync where ten people take turns reading out what they accomplished yesterday and what they plan to do today. It feels like management, but it is actually micro-management disguised as collaboration.
The Reality: If a meeting's only purpose is the transfer of one-way information, it should be an email, a Slack thread, or a dashboard. Meetings should be reserved for debate, complex decision-making, and relationship building.
The Fix: Zero-Based Calendaring. If your team is buried in syncs, a gradual reduction won't work. You need a hard reset.
The Bankruptcy Declaration: Cancel every internal recurring meeting you own for the next two weeks. Yes, all of them.
Observe the Silence: See what actually breaks. You will quickly discover which meetings were load-bearing and which were just habit.
The Reinstatement Charter: Only add a meeting back if it passes a strict test: It must have a clear owner, a defined objective, and a mandate that cannot be achieved asynchronously.
The Insight 🧠
A meeting is a bug, not a feature. A "Brute Force" culture defaults to meetings because writing things down clearly takes effort. A "Resonant" culture respects time enough to write it down, reserving meetings only for the conversations that truly require human collision.
Your homework for this week: Look at your calendar for the upcoming week. Find one recurring meeting where you are just an "Audience Member" or one sync that could be a written update. Decline it or cancel it. Reclaim that hour.
See you next week,
Serhii Klymenko
Creator of The Resonant Manager