[lojack]

I self admittedly have trouble with delegation, and maybe you or someone else on here can help. The problem I have is a lot of my time is spent in meetings. I can certainly throw meeting invites to my reports, but I think to when I was a developer and how grateful I was when my manager shielded me from meetings so I could focus on work. It's not that I don't think there's useful information in those meetings for the individual contributors, its that I think there's also a lot of useless information that would largely be a waste of time.

[brazzledazzle]

I used to think I hated all meetings but what I actually hated was pointless meetings, especially ones that could be hammered out in less time asynchronously via email or chat. I learned about the distinction when I dealt with a manager with some unaddressed control issues. Of course that was just the tip of the iceberg but it was a standout symptom of a bigger issue.

It’s ok to try to unload bullshit but it’s also important to make your employees feel like you trust them. If you shield them too much and firewall everything they can end up feeling like they’re just workhorses that can be swapped out.

[jmtulloss]

In my experience, meetings follow responsibility. Make somebody responsible for the thing that causes the meeting and you'll get mental and physical time back. Plus you'll give that individual a chance to truly own something end to end.

There are meetings and other tasks that managers must take care of. I like to make a list of those things with a brutally critical eye towards what I _must_ do and figure out how to delegate everything else. Oftentimes this doesn't save time in the short term (you have to teach and then follow up with your delegates), but it works quite well over time.