Ah, the unnecessary meeting.

You've had hundreds (maybe thousands of them).

Wouldn't it be great if they could all go away?

You won't eliminate them all, but you'll eliminate a ton with one simple method that could save you over 400 hours a year.

I like to call it the Time > Talk Method.

It's simple. It's easy. It'll drastically improve your work week.

But first. A story

Why the hell is this so important to me?

Simple. I was averaging 18+ hours a week in meetings with my agency last year.

Some weeks, I tipped over 25 hours of the working week, just on meetings.

Believe me when I tell you, I ran out of gas. Like "there isn't enough coffee in the world" gas.

I'm numbers guy, but I don't say that 25 hours stat with any pride. It was dumb. It is still dumb. And if you're doing it to yourself right now, there's something you can do about it (more on that in just a sec).

And one more tiny story.

When I burnt out for the first time in March 2022, I booked a ticket to Brooklyn (my former stomping grounds) to unplug for a week in April.

I was stretched so thin that I booked the first Airbnb and flight I could find. I didn't care how much it cost. I needed out. The whole process took 14 minutes.

Day one in a Greenpoint coffee shop I journaled. Here's the exact excerpt from that journal session:

It’s tiny, I know. Here’s what it says:

And here's how I felt about it (same session):

Pretty raw, huh?

That's what burnout and despair can do to you (even if I was optimistic it would change).

During that week in Brooklyn, I didn't answer a single email and didn't get on a single meeting. I read 3 books and walked around.

I also journaled that I would never have a week where I spent 10+ hours in meetings again.

In short, I came back refreshed.

But then I didn't hold myself accountable.

In the 38 weeks that remained of 2022, I had 26 weeks of 10+ hours in meetings.

Talk about failure.

And that failure led me to my second burnout in one year. I tell you no lies. I thought:

• I was going to have a heart attack.

• I'd never sleep more than 3 hours a night again.

• That my marriage was experiencing irreversible damage.

• My two-year-old was destined to have a shitty dad.

Not good.

But it was this second burnout that forced me to do something (for real this time).

What you see below is how I went from "am I going to the hospital?" burnout to actually having time and recovering from overwork in 30ish days.

That sounds too good to be true. And as I type that sentence, I totally get if you don't buy the simplicity you're about to read.

It might not even work for everyone. But if you adopt even one element of that Time > Talk Method, chances are you'll be in less meetings.

And that isn't a bad thing.

Let's go!

Red light. Green light.

You need to first identify how many of the meetings you're currently having that are worth your time.

Look back at your calendar for the last 5 work days (simple enough).

Now evaluate each meeting in terms of your energy post-meeting.

Mark them accordingly:

• Green: My energy was up following this meeting.

• Red: My energy was down or didn't change following this meeting.

The goal?

Eliminating the meetings that don't energize you so you can focus your time on what does.

See one of my weeks in October as an example:

Shoutout to Jade Bonacolta's newsletter "The Quiet Rich" for turning me onto this idea.

The chopping block

Being ruthless about meetings can be tough. But wasting your time sucks more.

For the RED meetings, consider the following:

Was the meeting necessary?

If not, eliminate its kind in the future. Make "no" your default.

Did the meeting have an agenda?

If it didn't, that's a conversation, not a meeting.

The next time a meeting like this is scheduled, make the agenda required a week before it takes place.

Why? If you make that meeting a shared document, chances are all involved will write their needs and issues in the comments. One week gives you time to solve them.

What's that equal? No meeting.

Could you have delegated it?

The example you saw above was a 17+ hour week in meetings for me.

That was back when I struggled with trusting my team.

I regret that so much.

Trust your people and let them take the lead.

It doesn't make sense for you to be on 10+ hours of weekly meetings and for one of your employees to be on 2.

The more you trust them, the more time they'll save you.

What you'll gain by being ruthless

Let me tell you a secret, if you spend over 10 hours a week in meetings, you're going to burn out.

My moment of clarity was Jan. 7, 2023. I applied the method and within 30 days, my calendar looked like this:

I quite literally saved myself 10+ hours a week (and a whole lot of sanity).

How to do it

If 10+ hour weeks of meetings are your norm, follow these steps to get your life back:

The Time > Talk Method

1. Mark your meetings RED or GREEN based on your energy afterward.

2. Eliminate meetings that aren't required.

3. Delegate EVERY meeting possible to your team (do not feel bad about this).

4. Require an agenda 1 week in advance of a meeting via shared doc (you can eliminate the meeting this way).

One more tip

Office hours will make this even easier.

In February of 2023, I told my team I was only taking meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Nobody pushed back.

Within 1 week of announcing that, I'd gotten 10 hours of my life back per week.

What do 10+ hours a week mean to you?

• 10 hours per week

• 40 hours per month (1 week)

• 480 hours per year (12 weeks)

Want to give yourself over 400 hours a year of your life back to:

• Be a better leader?

• Build cool shit?

• Spend more time with family?

• Focus on deep work?

• Take more time off?

Value Time > Talk.

There's no way you regret it.

Systems and resources I'm using right now to improve 1% every day.

I'm a Webflow disciple. It's what my website is built on. Get started for free. Need help designing a site? Let's just call it a hobby of mine. Book with me here to chat about it.

Want to start your own newsletter? beehiiv is the best place to get started. And it's completely free.