Rapid fire with Faire CTO Marcelo Cortes

This is an excerpt from Protocol’s Calendar Series, where we take you inside a day in the life of some of the world’s biggest tech execs: the meetings on their agenda, how they manage their time, their best productivity hacks and what they prioritize in a busy day. Read the rest of the series and the full interview with Marcelo Cortes.

Any hard and fast rules for your calendar, like no meetings after a certain time?

No, I’m very easy. I try to accommodate everything. [My EA] Carolyn knows when my time has to be protected, especially if it’s something that cannot conflict or cannot be changed.

Outlook or Gmail?

Gmail.

Phone calls or Zoom?

Zoom. I don’t answer my phone. It’s too many random calls, people trying to sell me things, asking for jobs. I only answer if I know exactly who you are and why you’re trying to reach me.

Optimal meeting length?

I think 30 minutes. Very rarely should they be longer than that.

Do you ever do focus days with no meetings?

I don’t, but [Faire co-founder and CEO] Max [Rhodes] has been doing that. He calls it his special little day. We do have no-meeting Wednesday afternoons but mine always gets meetings in there somehow. I am thinking of having a day just for myself once in a while.

Do you keep a separate calendar for your personal life?

No, it’s the same. My wife adds things there, Carolyn adds things there. And the only rule I have is that I do not add anything there anymore. Because every time, nowadays, when I try to add things there, I create more problems. And so I always go to Carolyn to make changes.

Is there anything you will make time for no matter what?

No, no. I’m very flexible, and I’m not a planner either. So I change things a lot. And very often, I’m fine with that.

Your favorite productivity hack?

One thing that I do very often that I think is mandatory is to stop, look at my whole calendar for a week, figure out what type of meetings I’m having and make sure that I’m spending my time right. Are the things that I’m doing the most impactful that I can do for my position? And I stop having a lot of meetings that I was having every time I do this, and I add new meetings or change the cadence of meetings. Not too long ago, for example, I would meet with all of my managers every month. There’s almost 30 of them. It’s impossible to do that now. I still meet them, but we only meet if they have an agenda to discuss with me.

— Michelle Ma, reporter (email | twitter)