3 ms·

I would recommend changing your mind instead of your behavior. In particular, stop making your employer's problems your problems. You have enough to worry abo

I would recommend changing your mind instead of your behavior. In particular, stop making your employer's problems your problems. You have enough to worry about. If your employer is keeping you cooped up in meetings all day, let them. That's their problem, not yours. If you want to be really generous, you could politely advise them that you could be more productive if you weren't in meetings all day. But that's sort of "management consulting" level advice, and there's a good chance you don't make "management consulting" money. If the meetings themselves bother you, and not some imagined "lack of productivity" then start sabotaging your value in meetings. If you keep being useful, you will keep being invited. Only allow yourself to be perceived as "useful" doing the things you want to do.

mytailorisrich 6y ago
While I agree with your overall comment, it is dangerous to be seen as "not useful"... What I do is force the decision on those who are there to make this sort of decision: management. That is, all my estimates include my honest assessment of all the time I will spend on meetings, etc. Then I can suggest that this could be shortened if I could skip this meeting and that meeting if they are deemed less important. That way I'm being useful while skipping meetings. In fact, I'm so useful that the time I can spare on meetings is very limited ;) Now, on the other hand, if the decision is made that the meetings are more important then when the dev. schedule slips it has nothing to do with me.