Turn your calendar into a source of good, not evil

Turn your calendar into a source of good, not evil

Raise your hand if you’ve ever said, “I was going to eat lunch, but my boss scheduled a meeting during the only time I could. Why can’t she see that it’s my lunchtime?”

Or, for the self-employed among us, “I was going to take a midday walk but I got caught up with [insert very important project]. Maybe I’ll have more time once I’m closer to hitting my income goals.”

Or for the stay-at-home parents, “I was going to work out, but ended up doing 4 loads of laundry, cooking dinner, and taking [insert child’s name] to the doctor instead. Maybe tomorrow will be easier.”

Here’s the thing though. Unless you have a very special boss, they are never going to stop scheduling over your lunch.

You are never going to feel like you magically have more time for the things you enjoy.

Tomorrow may not be any easier.

But there is something you can do, in all these scenarios, to protect your time, whether you’re protecting it from your boss, yourself, or a mountain of household responsibilities:

Step 1: calendar what’s important to you
Step 2: stick to the schedule (within reason. Stay-at-home parents, this will be hardest for you, but stay with me!)

It’s simple, but it may not be easy. It is effective, though.

Scenario 1: You’re supposed to have time for lunch at work, but your schedule fills up with meetings.

You don’t feel like you can say no to the meetings, so you eat while you work. Or worse, you skip lunch because there’s just no time. You feel like you’re always rushing to the next thing, and you feel like you can never take a break.

If your workplace is like most, your boss and colleagues check each other’s calendars for blank spots, and schedule meetings in the blanks. If you plan to eat lunch at 1pm but don’t block it out in your calendar, then 1pm looks like an available time to someone else. They don’t know you had other plans for that time.

So change that.

Block out lunch on your calendar so when that next round of meetings is being scheduled, you won’t be available. If they’re considerate, they’ll find another time that works for everyone. If they’re not, well, we can talk about that in another post.

Note, depending on the culture at your office, you may not feel comfortable putting “lunch” on your calendar, even if that’s what the time is blocked for. While I hope you don’t work in a place where you need to conceal the fact that you require nutrients to live, it is the sad truth that this is the norm in many offices. There are several ways around this:

• Call that time something else (I’m not suggesting you lie, just that you call it something more official).
• Don’t call it anything, just block the time as unavailable
• Change the settings in your calendar so colleagues can see when you’re available or free, but not the details of your meetings
• Take lunch at different times on different days

Once you’ve blocked lunch on your calendar, you must honor it. Ideally, honor it in a place away from your desk. Otherwise, meetings will have a way of finding you.

This second step (honoring the time you blocked out) is super important. Treat it with the same respect you would treat the other obligations on your calendar. Even if you take a super short lunch, if you completely unplug and refuel yourself, you will notice the benefits for the rest of your day.

Scenario 2: You’re self-employed and you have a to-do list that’s a mile long.

Your income depends on you, so it just doesn’t always feel feasible to stop for things that are non-essential. Or even for things that are very important, but don’t add to your bottom line.

You’re theoretically in charge of your time, but with more work than there are hours in the day, it doesn’t always feel like it.

But you still need to move, and no matter how much you love your work, you still experience an afternoon slump some days. And you feel stiff and tired at the end of a long day. You know that if you took even a short walk after lunch, it would improve your energy levels and help you focus for the rest of the day. It’s just so hard to stop when you’re on a roll.

What do you do when you are on a roll but you have a client meeting? You pause. You shift gears because you know you need to be there. What if you treated yourself like a client? What if you booked yourself for a 30 min walk after lunch, and honored it, no matter what other direction you feel you’re being pulled in?

What would putting yourself first for that sliver of time do for you and your ability to be present in your business later? My guess is that it would be more than worth the time it took.

Scenario 3: You are a stay-at-home parent and you haven’t hit your stride.

Between feeding your child, keeping them happy and healthy, and keeping your household running, some days you still feel like there isn’t even time to shower. You thought this would be easier. How do those other parents make it look so easy?

With a small child or two (or three) at home, this is the trickiest scenario. No amount of discipline on your part will magically allow you to be available at 12 noon for anything, no matter how earnest you were when you calendared it.

For this crowd, I suggest a slight tweak. You’ll still be using your calendar to identify and schedule ONE personal priority for the day. Just start with one. If you have wild success, you can build from there.

Let’s say, like our self-employed friend, above, your goal is a 30-minute walk. Based on your baby’s schedule, you think that walk could happen around nine am. So, pop it in your calendar at nine and SET AN ALARM. I know you’re not sitting around staring at your calendar, so a notification you’ll notice is essential.

If nine hits and there’s no way you can get your kid in the stroller, it’s OK if you have to push that time later. Your goal is to achieve this one personal priority before the day ends. Look for the next opportunity and start small. If you don’t quite make 30 minutes, but you still got out and walked, consider that a victory and keep trying tomorrow.

Pro tips:

• When starting out, try to schedule something flexible, that could theoretically happen any time during the day.
• When scheduling, try for the morning. If you succeed, the feeling of accomplishment will stay with you all day. If you don’t succeed at first, this gives you more time to try again.

That’s it. Calendar, honor your calendar as if the appointment was with someone else. (Plus the special techniques for stay-at-home parents).

Try it and let me know how it goes. Did you run into any roadblocks I didn’t mention? If it worked for you, how do you feel now?