No meetings

Calvin Ling
Aug 8, 2017 · 1 min read

Today I had no meetings. It felt great.

Admittedly, meetings are a pretty good forcing function. It means that I have to prepare beforehand with a deadline in mind. And, if the meeting is early in the day, it means I’m also held accountable because I must not make the other person wait.

During the meeting, I also hope to run through a set agenda. Nobody likes a meeting without an agenda, because then it devolves into unproductive banter. And then everyone wastes their time.

But, fundamentally, meetings are not work sessions. Otherwise, they’d be called a working session. So whenever I have a meeting, it means that I have to pause whatever else I’m working on. Today, with no meetings, I was able to make progress on my projects, at my own pace.

I’m going to try to start scheduling a day with no meetings. It’ll start from once a month and slowly move to once every couple of weeks. We’ll see how it goes.

Calvin Ling

Written by

Stanford MS&E '16. Associate at 415.