recurring-meeting-pruner

Recurring Meeting Pruner Skill

The [standing-meeting-audit](../standing-meeting-audit/SKILL.md) fixes a team's meetings; this skill fixes yours — the personal version, where the question isn't "should this meeting exist" but "should it contain me." Most personal calendars carry meetings attended by inertia: invited once for a project that ended, kept for fear of missing something, present as a spectator. The prune audits your actual role in each (decider, contributor, informed, or furniture), applies the four exit moves, and scripts the departures — because leaving well costs one message, while ghosting costs standing.

What This Skill Produces

• The personal audit — every recurring meeting: your honest role, your last contribution, what you'd lose by absence
• The verdict per meeting — stay / leave (with script) / delegate / downgrade-to-notes / halve (alternate weeks)
• The exit scripts — the graceful leave, the delegate handoff, the notes-instead request
• The after-shape — the reclaimed hours and what they're re-blocked for (unblocked reclaimed time evaporates)

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The recurring load — the standing meetings with length/frequency, and the honest role in each ("I speak in maybe one in four")
• The fear inventory — what absence risks per meeting (missing decisions? visibility? offending the organizer?) — each fear gets addressed by the move chosen, not dismissed
• The political weights — whose meetings can be left cheaply vs. whose exit needs care (the boss's staff meeting prunes differently than a peer's sync)
• The purpose of the reclaimed time — what the hours are for; pruning without a destination refills within a month

Framework: The Prune Rules

1. Audit by role, honestly: for each meeting — when did you last contribute something only you could? Do decisions there need you, or reach you fine in notes? Four roles: decider/contributor (stay, maybe halve), informed (notes will do), represented (delegate), furniture (leave). Most calendars are 30–50% the last two.
2. The four moves, matched to the fear: Leave when absence costs nothing real — the script handles the social part. Delegate when the team needs representation but not specifically you (a growth gift for the delegate — framed that way, honestly). Downgrade to notes when the content matters but the presence doesn't — "I'll follow via notes; ping me when an agenda item needs me." Halve (alternate instances) when contribution is real but not weekly — the compromise that organizers accept easiest.
3. The scripts carry respect for the meeting: "I'm pulling back to notes on this one — the updates serve me fine and I'll join whenever [topic] hits the agenda. Ping me anytime I'm needed" — the exit affirms the meeting's value for its members while ending yours. Never the honest-but-fatal "this isn't a good use of my time."
4. Visibility fears get a real answer: if a meeting is genuinely where you're seen (some are — the skip-level's staff meeting), that's a stay-reason to weigh openly, not a guilty secret. The prune is honest accounting, and "presence as career strategy" is a legitimate line item — just a priced one.
5. Re-block or relapse: the reclaimed hours get immediately blocked for their purpose ([deep-work-blocking](../deep-work-blocking/SKILL.md) territory) — a visibly empty calendar slot is an invitation the organization always accepts. And the guard: every new recurring invite gets the role question before acceptance — "what's my role there?" asked once at the door beats the audit done yearly.

Output Format

Meeting Prune: [name] — [N] recurring, [H] hrs/week

The Audit

| Meeting | Role (honest) | Last unique contribution | Absence cost | Verdict |

|---|---|---|---|---|

The Moves + Scripts

[Per exit: the move · the script, verbatim · the delegate's briefing where relevant]

The After-Shape

[Hours reclaimed → re-blocked for [purpose] · the new-invite door question installed]

Quality Checks

• [ ] Every role verdict cites the last-unique-contribution evidence
• [ ] Each fear was matched by its move, not waved away
• [ ] Scripts affirm the meeting while exiting it
• [ ] Visibility-stays are named as strategy, priced honestly
• [ ] Reclaimed time is re-blocked before the week ends

Anti-Patterns

• [ ] Do not ghost — fading attendance without the message costs more standing than the meeting cost hours
• [ ] Do not leave with a review of the meeting's worth — exit your seat, not their format
• [ ] Do not delegate as dumping — the handoff includes the brief and the framing, or it's just displacement
• [ ] Do not leave reclaimed slots visibly empty — nature and calendars abhor a vacuum
• [ ] Do not prune once — the door question on new invites is the system; the audit is just the reset