The First 5 Meetings You Should Hand Off to Your EVA
- Andrea Isabel Blanco
- Apr 6, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 8, 2025
You know the drill:
You're in back-to-back meetings from 9 to 6, hoping to squeeze actual work into the margins. By the time you wrap your last Zoom, you're mentally fried—and your to-do list hasn’t budged.
Here’s the truth: You don’t need to be in half the meetings on your calendar. And you certainly don’t need to run all of them.
Founders often underestimate just how much time and focus they lose to meetings. Worse, they delay delegation because they believe they have to be in the room—or the call will be ineffective.
That belief keeps you stuck in the weeds.
If you’ve hired an Executive Virtual Assistant (EVA), you now have a strategic operator who can attend, prep, run, and follow up on specific meetings—so you can focus on founder-level work.
Here are the first five types of meetings you should confidently hand off to your EVA.
1. Internal Check-Ins That Don’t Require Decisions
Example Meetings:
Weekly updates from ops or support teams
Standups with admin or finance
Task progress reviews
Why Founders Hold Onto Them: You want to stay informed. You worry something might go sideways without your eyes on it.
Why You Should Delegate: These meetings are mostly about accountability and reporting—not decisions. Let your EVA attend, record, and escalate anything that truly requires your attention.
How to Delegate It:
Create a summary template (3 bullets: what’s on track, what’s behind, what’s needed from you)
Ask your EVA to log updates in your project tools or send a digest
Set escalation rules (“Loop me in if revenue, hiring, or client issues come up”)
Result: You get all the context—without being in the room.
2. Vendor and Tool Demos
Example Meetings:
Software demos
Agency introductions
SaaS onboarding calls
Why Founders Hold Onto Them: You think you'll make the final call, so you might as well attend.
Why You Should Delegate: Your EVA can vet tools against your needs and report back with a yes/no recommendation. You don’t need to sit through 45 minutes of feature walk-throughs to get the gist.
How to Delegate It:
Brief your EVA on your criteria: budget, use case, red flags, must-haves
Have them ask critical questions during the call
Ask for a 5-minute recap after each meeting with screenshots or action items
Result: You only spend time on the tools your team actually wants to implement.
3. Scheduling and Logistics Coordination
Example Meetings:
Calendar alignment across teams
Rescheduling partner calls
Confirming travel, event, or venue details
Why Founders Hold Onto Them: It feels easier to just handle it directly, especially when urgent.
Why You Should Delegate: Every minute you spend figuring out logistics is a minute you're not strategizing, building, or leading. These meetings are purely operational.
How to Delegate It:
Empower your EVA to own full scheduling coordination
Give them access to key calendars, time zones, and travel preferences
Ask them to resolve issues autonomously unless executive involvement is needed
Result: You stop being the bottleneck every time a calendar conflict arises.
4. Onboarding + Offboarding Admin
Example Meetings:
Welcoming new hires or contractors
Explaining internal tools
Offboarding exit walkthroughs
Why Founders Hold Onto Them: You want to “set the tone” or make people feel welcome.
Why You Should Delegate: Culture and leadership touch points are important—but they can be separate from admin tasks. Your EVA can run onboarding logistics and prep everything so your involvement is strategic, not transactional.
How to Delegate It:
Build a repeatable onboarding checklist
Have your EVA prep welcome materials, credentials, SOPs, and intro meetings
Join for a founder “hello” once the groundwork is laid
Result: You show up only for moments that actually require your presence.
5. Project Syncs Where You’re Not a Decision-Maker
Example Meetings:
Status updates on marketing, hiring, or dev
Internal brainstorms you’re passively attending
Cross-functional updates
Why Founders Hold Onto Them: You like to stay in the loop or contribute ideas.
Why You Should Delegate: If you’re not making a call, approving something, or removing a blocker—you’re likely over-attending. Your EVA can keep tabs, document action items, and alert you if something is off track.
How to Delegate It:
Define your threshold: “Attend unless it’s a strategic roadmap change”
Ask for structured notes, not raw transcripts
Let your EVA flag only what’s urgent or requires your input
Result: You stay informed without being over-involved.
What to Keep (For Now)
Some meetings do require your presence—especially founder-facing moments like:
Investor calls
Client escalations
Strategic planning
Board prep
Performance reviews with exec hires
But even in these, your EVA can support with:
Pre-read materials
Scheduling
Agenda coordination
Live note-taking
Post-meeting task tracking
Think of them as your chief of staff-in-training—not just an assistant.
A Simple Test: The “Energy ROI” Method
If you’re unsure what meetings to hand off first, try this:
At the end of each day for a week, ask:
Which meeting gave me the highest return on energy or clarity?
Which one drained me without a clear outcome?
Could my EVA have attended any of these instead?
Use your answers to start building a new calendar norm.
Final Thought
Most founders are buried in meetings they shouldn't even be attending—let alone managing.
Delegating your calendar isn’t about removing yourself from your business. It’s about stepping into your role as a founder—and stepping out of the operational whirlpool.
By trusting your EVA to take ownership of the right meetings, you reclaim your time, your focus, and your momentum.
You don’t need to be in the room to stay in control. You just need the right support system—one that thinks with you, plans for you, and executes ahead of you.
