The idea started with a simple count. In one ordinary week our calendar held 212 meetings, and 61 of them were on a Monday. Most were status updates that a written note could have carried just as well.

So we tried an experiment for one quarter. Mondays became a day for deep work, and every update moved into a short written post that people read when it suited them. Anything that needed a decision went to a 25 minute slot on Tuesday.

The first weeks felt odd. People were unsure whether they were allowed to start on hard problems without checking in first. By the third week the questions in our team chat had dropped by a third, and the posts had become better than the meetings ever were.

After three months we compared the numbers. Projects shipped on time went from 64 to 81 percent, and in our survey 9 of 10 people asked to keep the Monday. We kept it, and we added a second quiet afternoon on Thursdays.