The meeting that’s easiest to drop.

Last week, I got in my car to drop my kids off at school, and my car wouldn’t start. I had a plan for my day, and this wasn’t part of it.

By the end of the day, I had jumped my car 4 times with the portable battery jumper my husband got me earlier this year. I made it to my 2 meetings and got the kids back home from school. I’m so thankful I had that battery jumper and that it worked.

I’m also thankful that I plan weekly now. When I look at my schedule a day at a time, I find that there aren’t enough hours in a single day to absorb the unpredictable parts of life.

2 months ago, I cut my plan to start posting weekly from 13 steps down to 3 items. I had time on my calendar last week to review what I cut and choose what to work on next. When getting my car fixed took over my day, that time moved to later in the week. The review still happened because it was already on my calendar.

If you run your own business, time to work on your business is the easiest meeting to drop when clients and to-dos are waiting. Before you delete this time from your calendar, ask what it could cost to skip it for another month.

Here are my notes from the review:

• Start even smaller next time. I didn’t need the webpage. It would have been simpler to start posting weekly on LinkedIn only and add the webpage and longer articles later.
• Use what I build. Systems and tools are only useful if I use them. My simple post tracker and AI editor agent have made everything easy to find and sped up the editing process. My note-taking system still needs work.
• Make a backlog. I missed the backlog of topics I cut. It would have been nice to have a post ready to go last week, when replacing my battery took most of the next day.
• Write it down. Writing every week has made me more aware of what I’m thinking and of the everyday moments. I didn’t expect this.
• Put what matters on my calendar up front. I’ve said yes to a lot recently and almost deleted the review to work on something else.

What worked for my launch may not work for your business. It may not work for me next year either, when the business or my life is in a different stage.

As for what’s next, I’ll create a short backlog. A bit of a buffer for the next time my day doesn’t go as planned. I don’t know yet how many posts that buffer will need. I’ll start small, as I like to do, with a single post.

I’m loving the quick weekly cycles I can run myself. From idea to plan, execute, refine, and then repeat. It’s one of the benefits a small business has over large companies.

Which meeting do you move first when the week gets full?