Last week, a family member observed his calendar and was delighted to see that he had open time on Friday to get some thinking done. Then he realized that his Friday was open because people had forgotten to extend their standing meeting invites into the new year. His day soon filled up.

Meeting creep is real, especially in remote organizations. A few one-on-ones and a couple of workgroups later, and your calendar owns your week.

Yes, meetings are part of the job. But it is key to make sure that the time is focused on what is important. This is where Covey’s rock analogy still holds. If you do not protect the big rocks first, the small ones expand until they become your whole day.

One approach to taming meeting creep is a meeting audit, which helps you match your time to your responsibilities.

Start with a simple inventory.

Pull up the next two weeks. List every meeting in categories: one-on-ones, leadership team, project work, all-staff, board or governance, external partner work, and “misc.” You are not making changes yet, but you are looking for patterns. You can then pick your approach.

1. The scorched earth reset.

Cancel every internal meeting for a defined period, usually two to three weeks. Keep only what is mission-critical and time-bound. Then add back the meetings you truly need, with a clear purpose. This works best when you are new or when the org has drifted into too many standing meetings, and you need a hard reset.

If you do this, communicate it clearly. Explain that you are doing a calendar reset to protect decision time and execution time. Invite teams to re-request a meeting only if they can name the outcome they need.

2. The collaborative tune-up.

Use the meetings as the audit tool. Take five minutes at the end of recurring meetings and ask three questions.

• Is this still the best use of this group’s time?
• What would we lose if we moved this to every other week, or made it asynchronous?
• What decision or output should this meeting reliably produce?

Then make a decision in the room. End the meeting early and cancel the series if it has run its course. Adjust frequency if it is helpful. Convert it to a monthly checkpoint if the work is stable.

This approach works well when the team is healthy and you want shared ownership of the calendar.

3. The unilateral edit.

Cancel or decline the meetings that do not serve your role or do not require your presence. You can also delegate attendance to someone closer to the work.

This works best when you are overloaded, when the org expects the executive to attend everything, or when meetings have become a substitute for clarity.

No matter which approach you choose, follow a few rules to keep meetings productive:

1. Every recurring meeting should have a purpose.

It should exist to make decisions, collaborate, or build alignment and trust. Building in relationship time matters in remote orgs, but do not let “connection” become a reason to keep a meeting that drains the room. If relationship-building is the true purpose, name it, and design it accordingly.

2. Every meeting should have an agenda and follow-ups

Requiring an agenda helps to start the meeting with a thoughtful tone and makes sure that everyone is prepared. Ending the meeting with agreement on next steps helps to keep up momentum and avoid rehashing issues over and over.

Once you have your calendar under control, then protect the big rocks in your calendar first. If your calendar does not reflect your priorities, it will reflect everyone else’s.