Advisors do not owe you a standing meeting. They owe you steering, and steering is cheaper in writing when you have already done the status work. The check-in that fails is the one that dumps four chapters of feelings and ends with "can we find time." The one that works names where the chapter is and asks continue, cut, or meet.
Status is not a memoir
One short block: which chapter, what is drafted, what is missing, what you will do in the next two weeks if they say continue. Dates and page counts beat adjectives. "Chapter 3 is 4,000 words, methods drafted, results tables empty, I can fill the tables by the 12th if we keep this question" is status. "I've been struggling a bit but I'm getting there" is a mood.
Write it for someone who last thought about your project three weeks ago. They are cold on the details even if they named the topic. Do not make them open a shared folder to find the question.
If you are guessing that a section will survive committee review, label the guess. Do not let the draft sound like the committee already agreed.
One decision: continue, cut, or meet
Ask for a decision with three options and no fourth hiding in a paragraph. Continue on the current question. Cut this section and I will move the pages to an appendix. Meet, because I cannot close the list without you.
That is a response shape with ownership attached. Continue means you keep writing. Cut means you stop spending weeks on a dead branch. Meet means you both know the written options were not enough — a call instead of a briefing when the decision is not yet enumerable.
A sufficient reply is one of those three words, maybe with a condition. "Continue, but drop the second case study." You invited that. You did not invite a recap of your last supervision.
Give a default and a date you will actually use. "If I do not hear by Friday I will continue and send the tables on the 12th." An honest default is kinder than a decorative "when you get a chance," which trains them to ignore the next one.
Draft, approve, send
Your assistant can turn notes into a briefing. You still read it. You confirm the send. Words that go to an advisor under your name are yours, including the ones that overstate progress.
They do not need an account. Email and a link are enough. If they already have RelayLink, you need an accepted contact — invite them once rather than discovering the gate on the morning of a deadline.
No attachments. Point at the shared draft in one sentence. The briefing is the status and the ask, not the chapter.
Nicknames stay on your side. If you call them "Boss" in your contact list, the package still says their real name unless you chose to share that word.
If they block you, you will not get a note about it. Treat a missed deadline as the default you wrote, and do not follow a quiet refusal with a second plea in a different channel.
When the chapter can be steered in a line, connect your assistant and send the check-in instead of booking a meeting to hear yourself talk.