Sunday Night Executive Meetings

The following technique is for executives and founders, rank-and-file team members should absolutely not be expected to work Sundays.

I read Tim Cook held his exec meetings Sunday nights which made me chuckle because for 20 years I’ve done that too.

By the time Sunday night rolls around, most people - and especially C-suite execs - have their computers open anyway, working, getting ready for the week. Instead of the team firing off emails or chats to each other that night, I decided it would be better to have everyone together on a call (while at Yext). Today, it’s in Roam.

Sunday Night Executive Meetings have a number of advantages. First, it saves you half a day. If you wait until Monday morning, say from 9-12, you’ve used 5% of the whole week on your exec meeting. By doing it Sunday night, everyone can start Monday morning fresh with a clear idea of where to focus.

Next, it saves a whole deep work cycle for the next level down. Since each exec starts Monday with a clear idea of what to do, they use their time Monday morning to get their team going on the appropriate deep work. If execs were stuck in a meeting Monday morning, their own teams wouldn’t be able to get going until Monday afternoon.

Also, it’s good to have some open-ended time. I’ve always started at 8. We sometimes end at 9, sometimes at 10:30. There’s no “next meeting” that forces us to stop. We’re done when we’re done.

Bonus If you have operations in east Asia, the timing works well. Singapore, Tokyo, Shenzhen - they’re all well into Monday by the time your Sunday evening rolls around. If you wait until Monday morning, you’ve lost a whole day in Asia.

If Tim Cook still jumpstarts Apple each week with a Sunday night call, I strongly recommend founders of a new company do the same for as long as you possibly can.

Howard