The collective calcification of the calendar

As a hater of meetings, I loved this phrase from Basecamp CEO, Jason Fried (22:25 to 23:08).

“I've also found that I regret far more things I say yes to than the things I say no to. So, part of what I've done is I've tried not to say yes to things, far in advance. I've just looked at like this is a bit of self-awareness basically and this is just my own thing. But I tend to regret things that I book far in advance.

“I like an open schedule, being able to have space and time to think things through, to do things that make sense at the time. What I don't like is if I looked at my schedule on Monday and go, I have no time this week for anything interesting that comes up. Because I've prebooked it, I booked it months ago, this is happening at 10, this happening at 2, and this happening at 3, and I've got no time.

“That's what I regret, it's not the individual things. It's the collective calcification of my time that I created in the future. Because I kept saying yes to too many things down the road.”