Note to self: You don’t have to accept every meeting invite
Typically, when a meeting appears on my work calendar during an open block of time (an open block of time being a rare and precious resource), without even blinking or thinking, I consider the time gone and booked, out of my control. It feels like a literal obligation on my calendar. But it’s recently occurred to me that it doesn’t have to be this way.
The way I see it, there are three possibilities for every meeting invite:
This is an important and timely meeting—more important than having that time to do individual work, or attend/host a different meeting.
This is an important meeting, but there are better ways to use that block of time on that particular day.
This is a dumb meeting that either doesn’t need to happen at all, or I’m really not required to attend. It’ll be the type of meeting that I will multi-task through, which is to say I effectively won’t attend the meeting, but I also won’t do the other thing I’m trying to do, either.
Usually, in all three scenarios, I accept the meeting invite.
Do I do this because I’m overly polite? Or is it self-sabotaging behavior? Both? I think I’ve viewed my calendar as a collaborative canvas, that I can paint on but so can anyone else. It’s free and open space. But I was recently reminded that my calendar equals my priorities. Full stop.
Or, said another way by the head of Microsoft, “It’s your time, be selfish about it.”
As a disclaimer, I’d like to point out that I’m actually pretty pro-meeting. In my role, meetings often are the work, so saying meetings are bad is like saying work is bad, which it isn’t, or at least mine isn’t. When done well, meetings make things happen, and they’re fun and uplifting and empowering and clarifying. A lot of the time, honestly, I love meetings. But meetings get a bad rap from bad meetings that don’t have an agenda, lack clear outcomes, have too many people, or the wrong people in the room.
Anyway, I need to remember that if someone sends a meeting invite, they’re asking a question. The invite even has buttons: Yes or No. It’s not that the organizer has booked an appointment, like a customer in a salon or doctor’s office. Coworkers are not customers, (in some ways of thinking you could say they are I guess) and so even though you don’t generally turn away customers, I can turn away coworkers (politely). Sometimes I sigh and say, “Well, it’s my fault for not blocking the time in the first place, after all. I left it available on my calendar, which was actually my own invitation to others to come on down and schedule some time.”
And yes, the obvious answer to some of this is to block time and schedule work, which I do, but should do more of it as needed. But I also most critically need to remind myself that I have a choice when I receive most meeting invitations, to RSVP as I determine is appropriate.
In the list I gave above, the first type of meetings should be accepted, the second should be negotiated (because it also turns out that coworkers are reasonable people and they’re not going to go and leave you a one star Yelp review because you asked to move a meeting), and the third probably declined, within reason. Sometimes that’s not possible, and sometimes it is. But I can decide for each as I go, because again, the thing I am telling myself here, is that I have a choice, and it’s always my choice to make.
And that’s the broader lesson here for myself, too. Aside from the hyper-tactical aspect of this when it comes to managing my calendar, it’s worth remembering that my life is my life, and I control it, which means being a little selfish sometimes, and that’s okay.
