Hi all,
Much like the salad crisper drawer in your refrigerator, "no meeting day" is also a lie. People book over it, every time. Things get busy, something urgent comes up, and the only spot left is no meeting day. Guess what happens.
I actually think the better solution is "no meeting times". A lot of people are at least peripherally familiar with Paul Graham's Maker Schedule, Manager Schedule, so they get the idea of Makers needing multi-hour blocks to really get into a state of flow and get hard work done.
I think they miss some of concepts though... that even as an investor, who did a lot of work through meetings, Paul Graham still managed to create a sort of hybrid maker/manager schedule by utilizing office hours and stacking his meetings back to back towards the end of the day, leaving the entire morning free.
My idea (and I've never really had a chance to practice this) is twofold. First, use regular cadence to avoid ad-hoc meetings. Second, start banning when meetings can be scheduled, and gradually widening the no meeting time block.
For example, gradually ban meetings before 10am, then meetings before 11am, then meetings before noon. Low and behold, everyone has the morning free to get work done!
Now, admittedly, some managers really do need the manager time, and they may need meetings in the morning time slot. In that case, I may tailor the rules somewhat, for example, no team meetings before noon, but managers can meet with other managers before noon, or managers can have 1:1s if it's before noon but after 10am. (Alternately, for those on east coast/west coast teams, east coast has morning free, west coast has afternoons free.)
I'm aware of some products, like Motion that claim to optimize schedules in this way, but I'm pretty sure a few simple rules for the organization would work.
If you've ever worked at a place like this, let me know!
best regards
Sam
aka THE Awkward Engineer