Jeff Bezos always schedules his 'high IQ' meetings for 10 a.m. - and if something pops up later, he waits until the next day
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has a strategy for scheduling meetings.
- He told the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. that he takes his most challenging and important meetings around 10 a.m.
- Typically, the Amazon CEO avoids meetings in the late afternoon.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is rather particular about scheduling meetings.
He famously popularized the "two pizza" meeting rule, which holds that you should generally avoid meetings so large that two pizza pies wouldn't be enough to feed the entire group.
When Bezos spoke Thursday night at a dinner with Economic Club of Washington, DC, he threw out a few more scheduling guidelines.
The Amazon CEO avoids attending meetings first thing in the morning. Business Insider previously reported that he likes to eat breakfast with his wife Mackenzie and their children.
Bezos instead slots his top-priority meetings between 10 a.m. and noon.
"I do my high-IQ meetings before lunch," he said, according to Axios. "Like anything that's going to be really mentally challenging, that's a 10 o'clock meeting."
And if an issue presents itself in the late afternoon, Bezos usually will hold off on convening a meeting about it until the next day.
"By 5 p.m., I'm like, 'I can't think about that today. Let's try this again tomorrow at 10 a.m,'" he said.
So how does the Amazon CEO stay sharp at his mid-morning meetings? He said that he prioritizes sleep in order to boost his energy and mood. And, when it comes to making high-impact decisions, Bezos said that quality trumps quantity.
"As a senior executive, you get paid to make a small number of high-quality decisions," he said, according to Axios. "Your job is not to make thousands of decisions every day. Is that really worth it if the quality of those decisions might be lower because you're tired or grouchy?"
Bezos concluded that it's "enough" for him to make around three good decisions every day.
"Warren Buffett says he's good if he makes three good decisions a year," he added.