The meeting audit: how to cut four hours a week without offending anyone
Recurring meetings are the largest untouched line item on most executive calendars. A meeting audit scores each block against your strategy and drafts the polite decline.
Look at a full executive calendar and the culprit is almost always the same: recurring meetings that were useful six months ago and never got re-examined. They compound, they colonize the middle of the day, and they punish deep work.
A meeting audit is a small ritual with a large payoff. Once a week, score every recurring block against the plan you actually care about. The ones that no longer advance a goal get downgraded or declined. Two per week is a realistic target and reclaims about four hours.
Score before you decline
The audit is not a gut call. Each block should carry a visible score: which goal it advances, how often it produces a decision, and whether the attendees overlap with another standing block. When the score is written down, the decline conversation is easy.
Templates matter more than courage
Most declines get postponed because the message is hard to write. A three-line template — thank you, reason tied to a stated goal, alternative — removes the friction. Sending it becomes a Tuesday habit instead of a Sunday project.
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