Meetings You Should Cancel This Quarter

Recurring meetings are added by decision and removed by accident. That asymmetry is why calendars only fill. An explicit audit once a quarter is the cheapest capacity you will ever recover.

Four candidates for deletion

1. 1Status meetings where nobody makes a decision — replace with a written update.
2. 2Meetings that exist because a decider is unclear; fix the decision rights instead.
3. 3Meetings where the same three people talk and eight listen; shrink the invite list.
4. 4Meetings kept alive out of politeness to whoever created them.

The two-week test

Cancel it for two weeks rather than debating it. Ask what broke. Most of the time the honest answer is that a couple of people had to send a message they used to say out loud.

If a meeting has no decision, no owner, and no missing information, it's a habit with a room booked.

Protect what remains

For every meeting you keep, write one line: the decision it exists to make and the person who makes it. Anything that can't be described that way goes back on the list next quarter.