Designing Cadence: How CEOs Reclaim Time for Real Work

Stop Drowning in Meetings!Fix Your Cadence with "Hot & Cool Weeks".Most leaders think the problem is their meetings. It isn’t.The problem is cadence.Weekly rhythms fill calendars with recurring syncs, updates, and reviews, leaving no space for the deep, strategic thinking that real leadership demands.Here’s the fix: Hot and Cool Weeks.Hot weeks: meeting-heavy by design. All your recurring leadership meetings, one-to-ones, and cross-team forums happen here.Purpose: alignment and decision-making.Cool weeks: protected from standing meetings. Only ad hoc, purpose-led conversations.Purpose: deep work, strategy, and execution.Do this right, and you get clarity, progress, and momentum.Meetings improve. Work gets done.You can even plan vacations and holidays into cool weeks without falling behind.Expect some discomfort at first, this is a rhythm shift.Pilot it for 60–90 days. Give it a chance, and you’ll stop being a bottleneck and start leading like a CEO again.