Standups create anxiety. You hoard updates during the day because you need content for the meeting. You forget your blockers. You adjust your schedule to be in early, even if you work better at night. I ran into this when I started my company. People join startups to escape corporate bureaucracy. When I tried to introduce morning standups, the early hires pushed back hard. It didn’t feel like a startup move to them. Given that, I went back to the drawing board to break down the actual utility of the meeting. A standup exists to distribute context so a team can parallelize work and maintain synchronization. If that’s the goal, you don’t need a meeting.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mint.skeptrune.com/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
You can watch me write this blog post on video here on x.com.
The process
Post your task list in the morning
First thing in the morning, drop your todo list into a shared channel like
#standup. No meeting, no ceremony — just a message with what you’re planning to do today.Advanced version
Add timestamps if you want to track how long things are taking or provide more context for teammates.Why this works better
No schedule constraints
No schedule constraints
Team members who work better in the evening or across time zones don’t have to restructure their day to attend a morning meeting. They post when they start their day — whenever that is.
Context is always visible
Context is always visible
The message lives in the channel all day. Anyone can check it at any time, not just at a fixed meeting moment. Late additions or updated priorities show up in real time.
Less anxiety, more honesty
Less anxiety, more honesty
When you’re not performing for a meeting, you’re less likely to pad your list or artificially manufacture progress. The format encourages straightforward, practical updates.
It scales with async teams
It scales with async teams
This approach works for fully remote and distributed teams where overlapping hours are limited. The written record also gives managers a lightweight audit trail without additional tooling.