How to regain control of your schedule and stay ahead
Why your 'default' state makes all the difference
I guess that there are more time management quick hacks and tricks out there than time to read them all - which is somewhat ironic, isn’t it? However, as with most things in life, over-optimizing your time comes with greatly diminishing returns1; If you dedicate a day of your life to studying the most successful strategies, the results may be greater than you can imagine. Even a week of this effort can have a major impact. However, the more time you invest, the more the effects will diminish.
Optimization should never be a goal on its own. Use whatever method works best for you, and move on. If after some time you think it would be helpful to try another approach, go for it and see if it has a positive effect. However, don’t fall into the perfectionism trap - I’m speaking from experience.
Alright, with that nice warning label pinned to your screen we can move on. I feel like I am repeating myself but: Do not waste your time! (Easier said than done).
How do you fight back in a world constantly craving your attention?
We need a shield or better yet shields.
So here is what you will do: take your schedule - yes, singular, (if you have multiple schedules: well then … don't! - Combine them into one), great, now you’re going to block out all your days forever. Yes, I said forever, and yes, I’m being entirely serious here, but don’t be alarmed - it doesn’t mean you can’t have any more meetings or appointments. What we are trying to achieve, is “just” to change the default. From this point, by default, you won’t be available unless YOU choose to make time. By default, YOUR time is not ‘free’, but a resource, that should be guarded and protected.
Now that your day is blocked, we need to find the two hours of your day that will be your focus time. Ask yourself this: when is usually the time you feel most focused and productive? For me (and I’m guessing for most people), that’s early in the day. So the first two hours of your schedule are now not only blocked but extra protected. Under (almost) no circumstances will you use this time for anything other than focus work.
What we want is to give you a break from, well, everything so you can enter a state of flow to maximize your output. By consistently doing it daily (whatever you do with that time is entirely up to you), you will form a routine and not have to consider it anymore. You will establish a new habit.
Effective time management is, nothing more than a combination of dsicipline, habits and schedule management.
The goal is to establish a system that works FOR you and not against you. So now we can come back to the number one time killer: Meetings and appointments.
Try to avoid meetings at all costs. Try to avoid large meetings entirely: the nature of a large meeting is that few are talking and sharing information and most participants are just listening. (Or let’s be honest, most people are not even listening in large meetings.) If there is important information shared you can be sure that your coworker will be more than happy to update you afterward. If it’s information that will have an effect on you and your work, you can be even more sure that you will get the same information in an official email later. So there is not really a point in participating in large meetings, is there?
If you are a freelancer and spared from most meetings, you can still get lost in ‘busy’ work that doesn’t yield the desired output you are striving for. If that is the case, make sure to read my post on effective task management.
What about regular team meetings? Team meetings often can take an interesting life of their own... If you desperately want to see your colleagues, then, by all means, I’m not going to tell you to isolate yourself. Quite the contrary. I would just question if the regular team meeting is the best way for you to connect with your coworkers - if that is the reason or one of the reasons you find yourself there every week.
How about one-on-one meetings? They can be great (if you wanted the meeting in the first place). That’s one of the reasons your schedule is blocked. If you want the meeting to occur, then go ahead and see if it will benefit you in the way you want.
Should you attend meetings, or respond to requests that seem intriguing but you are unsure of their value to you? Here is a great trick I stole from Aryeh Bourkhoff: Look for a time slot during your week when you can set aside either a very early or very late hour to dedicate to these curious meetings. Let’s say you get an interesting but unclear meeting request during the week and you can’t make it (because, in fact, you can’t -remember? your schedule is blocked), you can offer an alternative: let’s say Wednesday night from 10 pm to midnight.
Your alternative proposal can say something like this:
“Unfortunately, I won’t be able to meet you at your requested time. However, I find it very important to exchange on that topic, so I’ve rearranged some things and we could meet on Wednesday after 10 pm. Would that work for you?“
This achieves a couple of things: First, it sounds like you really take this seriously. I mean, what kind of person wants to work on a Wednesday after ten, right? Second (and that is exactly the point), most people won’t meet you. You would be surprised by what incredible information suddenly can be conveyed via email, or maybe wasn’t that important after all.
Now, I realize that if you are new at a company and not in any senior position, it might be harder to enforce all this... Still, it should give you an idea of what your mindset should look like and what to aspire to.
One additional thing that you can do to get the most out of your day, is the following: After each hour, write down your “energy level” and focus level during that time. Do this for at least a month and look at the averages. This way you can find your “highs and lows”, and you will be able to match tasks and assignments accordingly. This way you can also find the best time for meetings (especially larger meetings) which can’t be avoided. Schedule them into the time of day in which you have the lowest focus and energy level. This way you lose the least amount of productivity.2
Let’s have a ‘walk-through’ of a potential day of yours.
The first two hours after waking is your focus time. No emails, no smartphone, and ideally your wifi on the computer (if you are working on the computer) is turned off. Whatever it takes to minimize distractions.
After that, you can deal with tasks from your to-do list, ideally, you would be using your Eisenhower grid, so your tasks are already prioritized, and you know which ones are the urgent and important ones. Do those first, so you can devote more attention to the long-term (not urgent) important tasks. This should probably bring you to around noon, or at least in that direction.
Take a break. I strongly advise that you take an active break which could include doing some exercises, yoga, or a walk.
You can use the time after your lunch break to deal with tasks from other people that are piling up in your inbox. Yes, Emails. Before you start answering each message one by one. Think about sorting them into the same four categories as any other todo. No matter what system you choose, make sure that you differentiate between the time spent sorting tasks and the time spent working on them. Otherwise, it will get mixed up which is not effective.
After a while of doing emails, or other low-energy tasks, your energy levels hopefully rise again and you can restart tackling those scheduled important tasks of yours.
Later in the day, once you feel less focused again, there might be one or two (hopefully not more) meetings.
After that, you should have at least 30 min to decompress. Collect all tasks that came up during your day and see if you need to schedule them for your upcoming days. This way your workday has a clear end and your brain can be at ease because all todos are written down, prioritized, scheduled, and won’t be forgotten.
So there you have it, one possible day of high output. If this seems a bit too much for you, and it feels like you're putting your creative genius into a corset, then remember:
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
So here is a quick recap of your new system:
Block
mostall of your schedule and avoid meetingsFind a recurring two-hour slot each day, for uninterrupted focus time
Track your energy and focus level and match tasks accordingly
Organize your tasks at the end of each day
No time management system is perfect. Depending on your situation, it can be extremely challenging to organize the chaos that seems to unfold around you. Prioritizing the tasks as we saw in this post helps to see things more clearly. Blocking out specific times for different kinds of work definitely helps to get stuff done more effectively.
Now you need to work on your endurance. On your ability to focus for long stretches of time. We will cover that… you guessed it, in a later post.
Until then, have a successful day
GNF
If this sounded unappealing to you, or if you have any questions, feel free to use the comment section below, or answer this email. I read every email myself and try to answer quickly. If you want a one-on-one session where I walk you through the steps, check out my offer on gumroad.
‘The law of diminishing returns’, is a term in economics that states that: “as an investment in a particular area increases, the rate of profit from that investment, after a certain point, cannot continue to increase if other variables remain at a constant. “
If you want to have an important meeting with somebody you should schedule it during a time of high focus and energy of course.