Love these slides, hard agree on _all_ points. But, be absolutely certain on the culture before you start declining meetings, even if for valid reasons like outlined in this presentation. Declining meetings can be seen as a negative, "not a team player", thing... and, I really have to be certain on my leadership, the company, and the context before I push back on someone wanting my time. Even if their request for my time was arbitrary, or useless.
Yep! And, I send that exact message/email all the time in good faith. But, even with that - if someone just wants to talk, trying to nail them down on a topic can be _seen_ as obstructive, even though it's productive. Unfortunately, lots of people who schedule meetings just want to talk with not much outcome.
I'm being pedantic, but my experienced inverse of these slides is that meetings are the "social" part of work. It really really depends on the company, the leadership, the people. But, sometimes - it's more in your professional interest to talk about + market the work vs. actually doing it.
In my experience, sometimes the job is just to talk and socialize — eg, with sister teams or stakeholders.
For my own sanity, I at least try to accurately label those… which is how my calendar usually fills with “1:1”, “coffee”, “sync”, etc. Maybe it’s pedantic, but the accurate labels help my sanity by letting me know which meetings I can show up without prep, a coffee and cookie, and push if things get busy.
