Ask HN: Tech Managers/Directors/VP's how much of your time is in meetings?

[stackdestroyer]

I'm looking to get some perspective on my own schedule from this diverse group of folks. I routinely find my schedule dominated by 6+ hours of meetings every single day of the work week. I feel like this is overkill and part of the reason I am having difficulty keeping things running while capping my hours at about 40 per week. Basically all the work that gets created in meetings seems to overwhelm the available time based on a reasonable work schedule.

How much time do you leaders spend in meetings? How do you reconcile a meeting heavy role and the ability to get things done while still keeping a sane schedule (< 50 hours a week)?

[epc]

When I was initially a manager of a world wide, cross-corporate project, meetings consumed all available time on my calendar. I was still evaluated as an I/C so I would do my "I/C" stuff at nights and on weekends. This was unsustainable. Over time (I'd say 14-18 months) I convinced my management to either judge me as an I/C and replace my corporate role with someone else, or let me bring on someone (call the role whatever you want, lieutenant, Chief of Staff, whatever) who picked up my I/C work. I still did "I/C" work but as a peer to the guy I brought on board. For meetings I restricted who could add me to a meeting to about 100 people across the company. Anyone else had to go through an office assistant we had who'd vet the request and run it by both me and my lieutenant.

The other thing I did, even with those restrictions in place, was to narrow down the time window anyone could schedule a meeting to be no more than four hours a day. If it was critical to the business they'd call me or someone around me and we'd work it out, but that restriction wiped out a lot of stupid meetings that I really did not need to be in.

Put another way: put a visible price on your time, and really push back if there isn't a clear reason for you to be in the meeting.

[chriscatoya]

Generally, it’s helpful to follow the 80/20 rule and time-box whatever you’re willing to allocate per week and no more. Do this and only the most valuable things rise up. People have a funny way of filling up the time they’re given, so constrain the allotment.

epc’s advice on limiting and gatekeeping your time availability is a good one. Also, keep in mind that long email back and forths are micro-meetings and avoid that trap whenever possible. A piece of advice I got as I was running five teams was: “Do you ever see executives answer these emails? No, they just have the conversation and they’re done with it.”

Setting time budgets for meetings and gatekeeping your availability means “No” is your friend. Used well results in focus. I find it helpful to consider urgency and importance as the criteria for prioritization.