Small teams and the value of a quiet week
The most productive stretch we measured had almost nothing scheduled in it.
When we looked back at a year of project logs, the weeks that shipped the most were not the busy ones. They were the weeks with a nearly empty calendar and one clearly stated goal.
Meetings are how organisations reassure themselves that work is happening. Actual work is quieter, and it needs long uninterrupted blocks that a full calendar makes impossible.
The fix is unglamorous: protect two mornings a week from everything, write down the single outcome that matters, and let the rest of the schedule fill the afternoons.