How do you manage to eliminate the number of video/voice calls when working remotely?

Call me old school but I find that people think more before calling someone than they do before sending an email. I encourage calls and am slowly trying to eliminate messaging apps. Calendly works great for scheduling timed b2b meetings during specific windows.

Decide on what should be a call and what you can do on Slack. A one-on-one with a team-member needs to be a call, just like a pitch to a potential new client. As long as you have an agenda for the call, it will be a good investment. Slack works great for chit-chat and quick questions. Sometimes we decide to "takte this off-line" and out of a meeting, and sometimes I jump into a heated Slack conversation and will suggest a quick huddle on a video-call. It depends! If you're having lots of ad-hoc video calls, you might need to consider a weekly meeting to address topics that are coming up a lot. It helps people to think things through ahead of time and shortens the time spent on the topic.

The easy answer is hitting-home what the actual meaning of a meeting is. If the goal of a meeting is not incredibly obvious and pinned-down [itinerary], of course it's going to feel like some/many [?] meetings and video/voice calls are unnecessary. Easy mode: don't take/make meetings unless they move the needle in a meaningful way. What 'meaningful' looks like is up to the individual/organization. Gotta' have 'meaningful' though. If you don't have the free-reign to sort of dictate your own meeting schedule, and you just keep getting ones that don't feel 'meaningful', it may be time to talk to leadership.

I use Slack as main mean of communication. I use Calendly to schedule meeting when necessary. My Calendly is setup with 5 hours lead time and 1 hour cool down between meeting.

I made a video on it recently ( ) and this simple, obvious thing seems to work the best. I do very little meetings / calls, mostly "social" ones like getting to know a new client etc.