How Dropbox's co-CEO decides which meetings to skip

• Dropbox co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi chooses five areas each quarter where he can make significant progress.
• He said it has become a "filter" for how he spends his time.
• He said if he's invited to a meeting outside his core priorities, he'll skip it and send a delegate.

It can be hard to stay focused on your priorities when constant pings and competing projects are pulling you in different directions.

That's why Dropbox co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi developed a simple system for keeping his biggest priorities front and center. His most basic productivity hack is to identify five things he needs to accomplish each quarter, and use it as his North Star of where he spends his time.

"I pick things that I can make significant progress on in that quarter," Alkarmi said. "And so it becomes a filter for how I prioritize my time."

He shares those five priority areas with his team, administration, and chief of staff so everyone understands where he's spending his time. Those priorities guide how he structures his weeks and decides where to devote his attention. As he put it, the five priorities "win at all times," even when competing demands arise.

Alkarmi held leadership roles at Vimeo and Meta before he joined Dropbox in 2024. He became co-CEO in May, alongside Dropbox founder Drew Houston, and will eventually become the company's sole CEO.

This is part of a series of stories from Business Insider's conversation with Dropbox's co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi. To be alerted when the next piece publishes, follow reporter Ana Altchek here.

• Dropbox's co-CEOs have a keyword they use to resolve disagreements at work
• Why Dropbox is sticking with remote work, according to its new co-CEO

Alkarmi said that when he joined Dropbox, he faced a wide range of tasks across various business categories. He narrowed his priorities to five key areas, including people, the business, and performance.

On the business side, Alkarmi said he looked at data and identified reducing customer churn as a key priority, with the goal of making "meaningful progress" in the first quarter. He said he uses work management tool Trello to manage his top five priorities.

The list doesn't just help Alkarmi decide where to spend his time. It also helps him determine what isn't worth his attention.

"Sometimes I get meetings that are not related to these things, and I don't go," Alkarmi said.