How Dropbox's new CEO decides which meetings to skip

Amid constant notifications and competing projects, staying focused on core priorities is no easy task. Dropbox co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi has developed a simple but effective system for this: every quarter he identifies exactly five key goals he can realistically achieve, and uses them as the main compass for deciding where to spend his time.

"I choose the things I can make meaningful progress on within that quarter," Alkarmi says. "That becomes the filter that determines how I allocate my time." He shares these five priorities openly with his team, his executive assistant, and the person who manages his schedule, so everyone understands where his time is going. Alkarmi notes that when these priorities clash with other tasks, they "always win out."

Alkarmi joined Dropbox in 2024 after holding leadership roles at Vimeo and Meta, and in May he became co-CEO alongside company founder Drew Houston, with plans for him to eventually take over as sole CEO. When he joined the company, he faced an overwhelming stream of tasks spanning various business areas, but he consolidated them into five core priorities grouped under broad categories such as people, business, and performance.

In the business category, after analyzing the data, he set reducing customer churn as his top priority for the first quarter. Alkarmi, who uses Trello to track his priorities, uses that list not only to decide where to spend his time but also to identify which tasks aren't worth his attention. "Sometimes I get invited to meetings that have nothing to do with these five priorities — in those cases, I just don't go," he says.