Rank your calendar by who could cover it

Look at everything on your calendar this week and rank each item by whether someone else on your team could sit in for you without the meeting falling apart. Anything ranked low is a strong sign you are attending out of habit, not necessity. I ran this exercise on my own calendar recently, and the honest answer for a few recurring meetings was a name that was not mine.

Founders often keep sitting in meetings long after their presence stopped mattering, because leaving feels like giving something up. Meanwhile the meetings that truly need their judgment get squeezed for time because the calendar is already full of the ones that do not.

Try this today: go through this week's calendar and mark each meeting with a name of who else could attend in your place. Send one of those meetings to that person this week and see what actually happens.