United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby sleeps 8.5 hours a night, limits meetings to 4 hours a day

Despite running one of the world’s largest airlines, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby goes to great lengths to avoid being too busy. He works out nearly every day, sleeps about eight and a half hours a night, and usually finds time for a 15-minute nap. “Sleep is the number one priority,” he recently told Semafor. Kirby also reads three hours a day, including a good chunk of The New York Times and the print version of The Wall Street Journal, cover to cover. “I find all kinds of interesting stuff that I never would have known,” he says. “I wouldn’t have searched for it.” Kirby, who also reads an average of five magazines and two books per week, says reading “is the number one thing you can do to connect dots . . . that other people don’t see.” He also has a rule that limits his meeting time to four hours per day. When he does have meetings, he prefers to keep them conversational and light on presentation. “If you want to send a deck, send it to me in advance and then we’re just going to talk about it, but you’re not going to read slides to me,” he says. The purpose of all of this? To stay focused on the big picture. “The further you go in your career, certainly by the time you’re th…