Picking up on williamliao and his idea of preventing people from overscheduling your calendar, I strategically block times where I decline meetings. I became more vigilant about this when I took on my second client a year ago. I have to manually keep both calendars in sync to minimize meeting conflicts.
Here is a tip for anyone who is responsible for scheduling meetings. Never schedule meetings first thing Monday morning or at the end of the day on Friday. Even if you do your best to make your meetings M.E.A.T.Y., you have an uphill battle. Monday mornings suck. Let's just be honest. That's a terrible time to have a meeting. Friday afternoons most people have already mentally checked out. You're not going to get much accomplished in that meeting either.
The COO is notorious for scheduling meetings late on a Friday. She scheduled a meeting for 4:30 tomorrow, and I had my calendar blocked out because I have my monthly massage. I let the director know that I would not be available.
As you may have guessed, I'm not the type of person who accepts all meeting invites and waits until the meeting to see what it's all about. I would love to decline meeting requests that do not have an agenda or any indication other than a few words about the meeting. I used to do that when I was a full-time employee. I can't be as direct as a consultant.
williamliao