A regular short conversation prevents the irregular long one. That is the whole of this entry and the rest is the schedule.
The shape that works
Weeks one and two: a call every day, fifteen minutes, at a fixed time inside the overlap.
Weeks three to eight: a call every day, ten minutes, plus a written update.
After that: a written update every day and a call once a week, half an hour, with an agenda.
Monthly: half an hour that is not about tasks.
Quarterly: a review against the written role.
The written update
Three lines, sent at the end of the Philippine day, which is the middle of yours if you are in Australia and the start of yours if you are in Britain.
What I finished. What I am blocked on. What I need from you.
The second line is the one that earns the whole practice. A person blocked at ten in the morning here and unblocked at nine the next morning has lost a day; a person whose blocker reaches you inside your working day has lost an hour.
Answering the blocked line
Same day, every day, even if the answer is that you will look tomorrow. An unanswered blocker teaches the person to stop reporting them and to work around instead, and working around is how a process silently becomes something nobody documented.
The monthly conversation
Not about tasks. How the work is going, what is frustrating, what they would like to learn. It is the conversation that surfaces somebody thinking about leaving, three months before they leave, which the entry on attrition explains is the only useful warning you get.
It is also the one most often cancelled, for the same reason it is most useful: nothing is urgent in it.
What kills a cadence
Cancelling the regular meeting because you are busy. The regular meeting is what makes the urgent one unnecessary, so cancelling it in a busy week is precisely backwards, and once cancelled twice it is gone.
If it must move, move it. Do not cancel it.
Asynchronous by default
Most communication should be written and not require anybody to be present. A written brief can be reread and referred to in three months; a spoken one exists in one person's memory.
Reserve the synchronous time for the things that genuinely need it: anything ambiguous, anything new, anything where tone matters, and anything where you need to hear hesitation.
Which channel for what
A running channel for the day-to-day, so that context is visible and somebody covering can catch up. Email for anything that must be found later. Your task system for anything with a deadline. And a call for the things above.
What does not work is a channel per client contact, so that the person receives instructions from four people in four places with no priority between them. Where several of your people brief the same person, one of them owns priority.
The overlap, spent well
Whatever hours you share, spend them on the things only you can unblock and let the steady work happen outside them. A team that spends the entire overlap in meetings has converted its most valuable hours into its least productive.
Reviewing the cadence
At ninety days, ask whether the daily call is still earning its time. Frequently it is not and should become weekly; occasionally it is and that is worth knowing too.
Holidays and leave in the cadence
The daily update stops when the person is on leave and somebody should know that in advance. A client surprised by a week's absence has not looked at the calendar the entry on holidays recommended keeping.
When there are several people
One written update per person, one call with the team, and one person on your side who owns priority. Multiple clients briefing one team without an agreed priority is the commonest cause of a team that looks busy and delivers little.