1 · 4 min
The earn-the-hour test
For each recurring meeting you touched last week, answer: what decision left the room, who needed to be there, and what would break if it vanished for a fortnight. If you cannot name a decision, it is a briefing wearing a calendar invite. Briefings can be notes.
A Monday “ops sync” at a media company survived three reorganisations. Nobody could name a decision. They killed it. Two people kept a Tuesday note. The other eight got an hour back.
2 · 3 min
How to kill it without a fight
Write: we are pausing this for two weeks. Updates will live here. We will put it back if a decision actually needs the room. Pausing is easier than a funeral. Most meetings do not earn the resurrection.
A finance business partner paused a Thursday pack-walkthrough. After two weeks, only the FD asked for it back — as a 15-minute pre-meet with two people, not twelve.
3 · 3 min
Protect the hour you just bought
Put real work in the slot the same day you cancel, or the calendar will refill with someone else’s fog. Name the work in the cancellation note so you cannot pretend you are now “free”.
After killing the ops sync, the media lead blocked 09:00 for the rate-card problem she had been sliding. That was the point. Not a quieter inbox.