#2: Should you be in this meeting?
Your time is precious – protect it.
Meetings can be a powerful and valuable tool to engineers. But they come with a cost: time.
Meetings quietly cost more time than scheduled. Engineers often need to context switch before and after meetings. You may be in the middle of developing an algorithm or hunting an elusive bug. Stopping that work prematurely for an unrelated meeting loses your momentum. After the meeting you need to figure out where you left off and what to do next. Or maybe you have another meeting on a separate topic right afterwards that you have to context switch into.
Engineers are paid to write and maintain code. That is your core value-add to an organization. Taking time away from that core mission should be done carefully and with intention.
Maximize the effectiveness of your time by attending meetings that are valuable to you and your team. In those meetings you should accomplish at least one of three worthwhile actions:
🎓 Learning Something
Will the meeting contain a knowledge share of some kind? Improving your skills and capacities as an engineer is always valuable. That’s why you’re reading this newsletter, after all!
One caveat to learning is you don’t always need to learn directly from the source. Keep reading to learn how to decline a meeting you would still like to learn from.
🧑🏽🏫 Teaching Something
On the other end of learning is teaching. Do you have knowledge to share about a current project, a change at the organization, or a presentation on a new technique or piece of software? Senior engineers actively help by spreading knowledge and leveling up those around them.
🫵🏼 Making a Decision
Is there an outstanding question needing answering, or a direction to be set? Make sure you’re available to remove any confusion and blockers for your team.
Assessing A Meeting Request
Now that you know what activities make your presence in a meeting valuable, how do you know which meetings to attend?
Ensure the meeting has an agenda. What is the intention of the meeting? What is the desired outcome?
Clarify your role. When you aren’t sure how you fit into the agenda, ask the organizer or another colleague how you can contribute.
Check your calendar and workload. What else are you doing that day? Is the meeting at a weird time? Do you have a difficult task and want to minimize distractions and context switching? Meetings can work around your schedule.
If you aren’t learning, teaching, or making a decision, your time is better spent on other tasks. Decline the meeting.
How To Decline a Meeting
You’re going to love this:
Just decline it, with a short message why.
That’s it! People vastly overthink the repercussions of not attending a meeting at work, and feel obligated to attend everything they’re invited to.
The only rule: have a good reason why. “Meetings suck!” isn’t going to win you any influence at an organization (even though a lot of times it’s true). Your reason should explain why your time is better spent elsewhere.
Examples
I am a bit behind on my current feature development, and would like to maintain focus on that so I can meet our sprint goals.
The meeting might be valuable, but sacrificing your current goals for the meeting isn’t worth the trade off. You can always ask for an update after the meeting with any learnings or decisions.
Amit and Jarrod are already attending, they’re more than capable of getting you up to speed without me.
Do you really need everyone invited to accomplish a goal? Share the responsibilities of your team. You aren’t required to learn or decide everything. Teammates can fill you in or own that part of your team’s knowledge.
Bonus tip: As a senior, you can protect the time of your teammates by “falling on the grenade” and handling meetings on their behalf.
I’m not sure where I fit into this meeting. Please add to the itinerary and invite me again if appropriate.
This may be a clarifying question via company chat or email first before an outright decline, but the goal is the same: if you aren’t sure what value you have by attending a meeting, don’t go.
My Tuesday is really busy and I have an important task to do that day. Can we shift this meeting to Wednesday?
Most things are flexible, just ask.
What if I have to be there?
What if you want to decline a meeting but someone has specifically requested your attendance? Clarify the value. The person asking for your attention needs something, you should understand what that is. Outright declining leaves them feeling unimportant and makes you look unhelpful or unreliable, and they still have a problem to solve.
What if the meeting request comes from a person of authority, like your boss, and you feel obligated to attend? Like other scenarios, start by clarifying the value. Is it your CTO giving an engineering-wide update about something? Missing it might not be a huge deal – you can be caught up after. Is it a one-on-one meeting about your performance? Very valuable, must attend.
What are your reasons for wanting to decline? Are you swamped with work and worried about missing a deadline? Let them know.
Any time you attend a meeting you feel obligated to and it doesn’t end up being valuable to you, share that feedback. If you’re not sure the meeting was valuable, talk to a more experienced teammate that was there with you. Ask them what value they found, what takeaways they believe were valuable to you, and help you contextualize the experience for next time.
Meetings still suck. What else can I do?
Most likely, your growth into a senior engineer will be accompanied by more meetings. What else can you do to optimize meetings and your productivity?
In future issues of Become a Senior Engineer, we’ll discuss topics such as:
Making meetings as effective as possible for all attendees
How to listen and observe in meetings
How to keep meetings on track
How to avoid having meetings in the first place through asynchronous conversations
What did you think of this content? Do you have any questions or items I can clarify? Did you try any advice here and have success or difficulty? I’d love to hear about your experiences! Reply to this email and share your story. 📢