ZAMBO.

Direct answer

They keep missing the meeting. The project keeps paying for it. Put the stall on the record.

The review meeting is where this project gets its decisions, and the client has missed it twice, three times, always with a good reason and a promise about next week. Meanwhile the delivery date in everyone's head has not moved, your other work is stacking up behind a slot you are holding open, and when the deadline finally bites, the stall will somehow read as your delay. The fix is not chasing harder. It is making the stall visible the day it happens: every missed meeting logged with the decisions it was carrying, the date moving day for day in writing, and a review route that does not need a meeting at all. Here is the pattern, step by step.

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Updated October 29, 2026. First published October 29, 2026. The two delivery records quoted below are real and public, with their client decision states read back from the live service.

Step 1. See what a missed review meeting actually costs

A review meeting is not a chat; it is the project's decision point, and a missed one freezes everything downstream of it: the next stage cannot start cleanly, questions you priced as settled stay open, and work you do anyway risks being redone when the feedback finally lands differently. The cost hides because nothing explodes. The schedule just quietly converts their missed hour into your missed week, and the conversion is invisible because nobody wrote the original date and the waiting time in the same place. That invisibility is the whole problem, and it is why freelancers end up apologising for delays they watched happen in someone else's calendar. Make the cost a record and the conversation changes.

Step 2. Log every missed meeting the day it happens

Start a waiting record today, and add a dated entry each time: the meeting date and time, that it was missed or cancelled, what decisions were on its agenda, and what work is blocked behind each decision. Send a short note the same day, warm and factual: noting today's review did not happen, these two decisions are waiting, the record is at this link, and the delivery date moves by the length of the wait unless you tell me to absorb it, which I cannot do on this schedule. Same day matters. A missed meeting noted on the day reads as project management; the same list reconstructed at the deadline reads as an excuse, even when every entry is true. Three dated entries also change the client's own picture: one miss is life, a pattern on a page is a problem they own.

Step 3. Read the two states the waiting work can sit in

The waiting record is strongest when the work awaiting decision already lives on a record the client can act on without you in the room. The record format is AER-1, published as an IETF Internet-Draft (draft-zambo-aer1-26), and each step carries a verifiable receipt: a receipt proves the saved result was not changed since it was saved. The two public records below show the states checked work can carry:

Accepted: the decision is on the record

Pending: checked, and still waiting on a decision

An accepted record, 4 of 4 steps checked, decided_by client, release_hint ok_to_release, decided 2026-10-16T14:31:51.146Z in that example, is what a decision looks like when it lands: named decider, date, and the work released. A pending record, 5 of 5 steps checked and release_hint hold, is exactly your stalled project in record form: the work is done and checkable, and only the decision is missing. That contrast is the argument for step 4, because a pending record does not need a meeting to move; it needs one person to open a link and decide.

Step 4. Replace the meeting with an async review, and give it a window

Offer the exit from the pattern in the same note: the work awaiting review sits at one link, each item can be accepted or flagged with a reason, and you will treat the review window, say three working days from the note, as the decision point instead of a diary slot. Async review removes every honest reason meetings get missed: no calendars to align, no hour to protect, the decider can work through the items in fifteen minutes at whatever time their day allows. Be explicit about what happens when the window closes, agreed in your note rather than invented later: either the date moves day for day while the decision waits, which the waiting record already shows, or for low-risk items you and the client have agreed in advance that silence after the window lets you proceed on the current version. Agree that rule once, in writing, before you ever use it.

Step 5. If the no-shows continue, pause the project cleanly

After the pattern survives a waiting record and an async route, the project is not stalled by accident; it is deprioritised, and the professional move is a clean written pause: work stops in an orderly state, everything delivered so far is listed on the record with its decision state, completed stages are invoiced, and a restart is defined, a named date or a decision from the client, with the honest note that the delivery date restarts from the restart, not from the original plan. A clean pause protects you twice: it stops you holding unpaid capacity open for a project that is not moving, and it makes restarting a decision the client takes actively, which is the moment stalled projects either revive properly or close honestly. Keep the tone warm throughout. You are not punishing anyone; you are refusing to let a shared schedule pretend.

Step 6. Build the review into the next agreement

For the next project, price the review in as machinery, not hope: a named decider, reviews held async on the delivery record by default with meetings only for genuine discussion, a stated review window per stage, the day-for-day date rule for waiting time, and what silence after a window means for low-risk items. Clients who intend to decide quickly sign this happily, because it costs them nothing; clients who hesitate are showing you the stall before you have staffed for it, which is exactly when you want to see it. One project run this way also trains the relationship: decisions arrive faster when the decider has watched a date move, fairly and in writing, because of a wait they controlled.

What a record does not settle

A verifiable receipt proves the saved result was not changed since it was saved; it does not prove a meeting happened or did not, does not decide whose priority a project should be, and cannot make a client review anything. The dated waiting record, the written date rule, and the async route you offered are what the conversation stands on. This page is general information, not legal advice.

Frequently asked questions

My client keeps missing our review meetings and the project is stalling. What should I do?

Put the stall on a dated record and give the client a way to decide without a meeting. Log each missed meeting the day it happens with the decisions it was carrying and the work blocked behind them, and send a short same-day note: today's review did not happen, these decisions are waiting at the record link, and the delivery date moves day for day while the wait lasts. Then replace the meeting: the items sit at one link where the client can accept or flag each one, inside a stated review window, with the date rule for a closed window agreed in writing. If the pattern survives both, pause the project cleanly in writing, invoice the completed stages, and define the restart. Chasing harder just converts more of their stall into your delay; a dated record converts it back.

How many missed meetings should I tolerate before I pause the project?

One miss is life, two is a pattern to name, three is a decision to make. Name it at the second miss, in the same-day note, by offering the async review route and restating the date rule; that gives the client a fair, easy way back in. At the third miss, or when a review window closes with no decision after the async offer, move to the clean written pause. The count matters less than the sequence: record first, alternative second, pause third, each step in writing, so the pause, if it comes, is plainly the end of a fair process and not a temper decision.

Can I just proceed without their review so the project stays on schedule?

Only inside a rule you agreed in writing before using it. Proceeding on unreviewed work by your own silent decision makes every later change your problem: the client can fairly say they never approved that direction. The safe version is built in advance: certain low-risk items, a stated review window, and a written agreement that no flag inside the window means you proceed on the current version. Anything outside that rule waits, with the waiting logged and the date moving, because an on-schedule delivery of the wrong work is worse than a late delivery of the decided work, and far harder to bill for.

How do I tell the client the delivery date has moved without it sounding like a threat?

Say it as arithmetic on the record, the same day, in the same note that offers the fix: the review was set for today, the two decisions at this link are the ones the next stage waits on, the plan had no spare days, so the delivery date moves from the first date to the second, and the async link can still save it if the decisions land by the window date. A date move announced as shared arithmetic, early, with a way to undo it, reads as management. The same move first mentioned at the original deadline reads as blame, which is why the same-day note is the whole skill.

How do I run reviews so a missed meeting cannot stall the next project?

Deliver each stage as a handover the client decides on directly: each step checkable, the decision an accept or a flag with a reason, the state and its date on the record, and meetings kept for discussion rather than approval. When the work runs through Zambo, every step carries a verifiable receipt under AER-1, published as IETF Internet-Draft draft-zambo-aer1-26, so a pending stage shows as pending with its checked steps until the client decides, and nobody needs a diary slot to move it. New users get 20 calls and 1 wrap-up free every day, and picking up work in another AI is always free. For $0.99, run the next stage that way and let the record carry the review: get the Day Pass. A Day Pass is unlimited for 24 hours, no subscription. Ongoing use is the Zambo Pass at $29 a month or $290 a year, and $19 a month for $ZAMBO holders, which adds private handover links, your branding, and the approval record as PDF and JSON files.

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