Why I Never Cancel Meetings
Several years ago now I made a decision that has made managing my diary much, much easier. It is this:
Once I have booked an appointment into my diary, it stays there.
It stays there whether it is a paying client or pro bono work, a full day workshop or a coffee. A catch-up with my brother or a sales call. All of these things are, once they are in the calendar, given the same weight.
Things may end up being rescheduled or cancelled, but I will never* be the one who cancels them.
[*Never is of course too strong here. When I had to go to a funeral recently, when I am ill, when my daughter was being born, in very occasional other situations, I do rearrange or cancel things.]
Deep down, this now feels like a part of my commitment to honour and integrity.
But it started off as practical.
Before it, calendar management was hell.
Now, when I have a possible new meeting, I look for the next suitable space to have that meeting.
Before I created this rule, each time I had a possible new meeting, I had to look at all the time I potentially had ever, and decide if anything needed moving. If this thing was more important than that thing. It was exhausting. And unsustainable.
And I kept doing things that didn't sit well with me: namely, cancelling on people.
And cancelling on people for reasons that didn't sit well. Valuing conversations purely based on money. Or based on guesses of what might happen in the future.
There are some requirements and corrollaries to this commitment:
I have to be careful of what I commit to.
That reminds me of the key insight in Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks. I can't do everything. Maybe my 'I can rearrange things' was a desperate attempt to kid myself that I can fit everything in (when the reality is one day I'll die without having done everything).
But it's no bad thing to be careful about what we commit to.
I end up being the person who gets cancelled on, almost always.
Being cancelled on cuts me deep, sometimes. It gets me in the heart, probably in stories going back to childhood. So this is not a small thing for me. But I prefer that to being the person who is constantly implicitly saying to others: I have something more important to do than time with you. And that's what every cancellation is.
Once you have me, you have me. And I'll be there. I've given my word, and I'll keep it or honour it.
That is part of my practice. To be the person, for my clients, for the people around me, who is there when they say they will be there.
With my clients, I think about it a lot: mostly they have lots of people in their life who mess with their diaries and schedules. Part of the values I hold to in my business is to not add to that.
That is, too, the role I choose to take in life.
In the months before and after my daughter was born, I was keeping a success journal. Each day I would ask: what is success for me today? Many themes emerged. One was this: to support my wife and my daughter, success for me is the energy of the oak tree.
When we looked round the house we now live in, and found a 200 year old oak tree in the garden, I did wonder.
This energy is not for everyone. Not everyone aspires to the oak tree.
Not everyone aspires to impeccable commitments and whole-hearted integrity.
To honour.
But for me, this commitment is powerful. It forces me to have the conversations I would otherwise avoid.
It invites me to challenge others to keep their word. To think about their commitments.
To be where they say they will be, or to face that they aren't. To let go of the weasel language of 'I'll try' or 'sometimes' or 'let's see'.
I don't always manage that. It cuts me deep, as my wife will tell you when someone is not showing up for me and I'm struggling late at night.
But when I slow down I know that keeping my word like this is what matters. And I recommit.
It's the thing I can hold on to. It's the value I hold dear. It's part of the great journey and quest of my life.
So if you book something in with me, I'll be there.
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
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