The Meeting Trap
Most entrepreneurs are unaware that they are losing a significant portion of their week to “status updates” disguised as strategy sessions. When you spend half your time in meetings that could have been handled with a simple message, you are effectively bleeding time that you can never recover. These unnecessary gatherings do more than just clutter your calendar; they actively rob you of the deep work time required to move your business forward.
Protecting Your Greatest Asset
Your time and your calendar represent an extremely valuable asset—arguably your most valuable asset of all. Just as you would guard your financial capital, you must fight to protect your schedule because the very survival of your business depends on it. If a task does not require real-time debate, group decision-making, or active discussion, it does not belong on your calendar.
The Framework for Efficiency
To reclaim your productivity, you must shift toward asynchronous communication for routine tasks and updates. By leveraging tools like Loom for updates, Slack for quick questions, or project management platforms for tracking progress, you save live conversations for the things that truly require them. This episode explores how to audit your communication habits so you can stop wasting five minutes of writing on thirty minutes of meeting time.
Previous episode: https://iamceo.co/iam2723-the-entrepreneur-tax-nobody-warns-you-about/
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Trancription:
Gresham Harkless 00:00
We've all been there, we've gotten into that meeting, we're sitting down and like, this could have been an email. So if you're spending half your week in meetings that could have been solved with a simple message, you're bleeding time that you can't get back.
If you're building something meaningful, you're in the right place. This is the I Am CEO Podcast. I'm gresh, and for over a decade I've had the honor and the privilege of Learning directly from CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners just like you on how to build. After recording more than 1600 episodes, one thing has become clear. Success isn't about following someone else's blueprint. And as I like to say on the show, if you run your own race, you can't lose, even when you feel the journey should be a straight and linear path. What I've come to find out is success is a lot more like a plate of spaghetti. So in this special segment and episode, I'm starting to curate and share some CEO hacks and CEO nuggets that I've been dying to share. Drawn from thousands of of episodes with phenomenal guests that have provided awesome value on the show, but also my 10 years of business experience as well too. These lessons are designed to strengthen the foundational principles that every business is built on and guided by a simple equation that we always go back to with our content. Visibility plus resources times connections equals success. This is practical wisdom you can apply almost immediately. So be sure to check out the show notes for more resources and next steps on how to level up. And of course, enjoy this special episode of the I Am CEO Podcast.
Gresham Harkless 01:35
We've all been there, we've gotten into that meeting, we're sitting down and like, this could have been an email. So if you're spending half your week in meetings that could have been solved with a simple message, you're bleeding time. That you can't get back. And here's the truth about meetings. Most of them are actually status updates that are disguised as strategy sessions. Most of them exist because someone didn't take five minutes to write down what they ultimately needed. Most of them actually rob you of the deep work time that actually moves businesses forward. So here's a rule I'd ask you to consider and it can potentially change everything. If it doesn't require real time discussion, debate or decision making as a group. Make it into an email. If it's just an update, send a loom or a voice note. If it's a question, write it out. If it's a slack or Google Hangouts, teams, whatever you use or potentially leverage. Your project management tool. Save your meetings and frankly, save your time for the things that actually require a live conversation. Your calendar and your time is going to be an extremely valuable asset, I would probably even argue your most valuable asset. So protect it, fight for it. Just like your business depends on it, because ultimately it actually does.