How a calendar experiment is improving my well-being — and can boost yours too

In an earlier blog post, I shared my experiment to streamline my calendar and take a more intentional approach to scheduling my time. I promised to report back and let you know how it’s going. The result? Success!

With a large team of colleagues, my calendar tends to fill up quickly and can get a bit tangled with reschedule requests and other unexpected disruptions – both on my part and my colleagues’. My new calendar simplifies my schedule and helps me to be accessible to my team. 

In a nutshell: I’ve set up dedicated daily office hours — open to all — and blocked off time for answering emails and heads-down, focused work without distractions. 

To be clear, the experiment hasn’t been without a few hiccups. But overall, I’ll call it a win. The most meaningful outcome for me: I feel more present — both for my colleagues and for my family. And for the first time in a long while, I start my days with a peaceful feeling rather than anxiety about getting work done amid an avalanche of meetings. Even when urgent projects pop up, as they can do, I can feel the difference in my well-being.

Here’s how my new cadence of consistency came about: 

I started with my word for 2022: Simplify. 

What can I stop doing, or combine with other things to streamline and simplify my life? This year, that’s the question I constantly ask myself, which keeps me grounded and focused. 

The catalyst for my strategy was a brutal 2021. Beyond the challenges we’ve all faced during the pandemic and massive disruption, my mother died in October. Losing her rocked my entire being. It also catapulted my mindset toward intentionality. 

I’ve always been conscious of spending my time and energy wisely, but I now have an even deeper devotion to making every moment meaningful. The other question I now find extremely helpful is, “How do I make time for my priorities?” vs “How do I prioritize my time?”

I ditched hyper-responsiveness for flexibility and balance.

Over the holiday break last year, I read an article in the Harvard Business Review about asynchronous work and the importance of creating space for innovation to bloom. The stats the story cited were shocking — and familiar. According to research, the average person:

• Sends and receives about 121 business emails a day
• Spends about 23% of their time on unnecessary emails
• Sends about 200 instant messages per week 
• Checks email every six minutes

It was a revelation. In the past, when someone reached out to request time on my calendar, I would generally schedule some time out in the future — or need to squeeze a renewal break (often my much needed time away from screens!). I immediately decided to make a change in how I approach my day-to-day organization. 

So, armed with that information, I formulated a new calendar strategy to move away from the feeling of constantly working and not accomplishing enough state of reflexiveness and back-to-back recurring meetings — and toward better effectiveness and energy management. 

Here’s how I set up my calendar:

• Office hours: My calendar is open for 90 minutes in the morning and 90 minutes at the end of the day for 20-minute time slots with anyone who’d like to meet with me. I ask colleagues to share two or three bullet points on the topic they’d like to cover.
• Deep work: I dedicate another 60-90 minutes in the morning for heads-down uninterrupted focus time when I feel the most productive.
• Email/Instant Message (IM) response: I also dedicate 60 minutes in the morning and 60 minutes in the afternoon to responding to emails and chats. 
• Exceptions: Unplanned events arise, of course, and the new structure of my calendar allows for adaptability when disruption occurs. 

Change is hard. Change is good. 

I admit I wasn’t sure how it would turn out because it was drastically different from how I typically structure my days. Not long into the experiment though did I discover how energized I feel knowing I have dedicated focus time, dedicated email time and dedicated connectivity time, especially when a new name pops into an office hours spot. My team and stakeholders feel my accessibility in a tangible way.

And, now that I’ve stopped responding to emails first thing in the morning, I am more present with my kids as they get ready for their summer activities (and school), and it’s a smoother and more positive transition for all.  

The experiment is officially over but the improvement in my day-to-day life remains! I’m hopeful that as people become more accustomed to the approach, they’ll recognize the benefits — and perhaps adopt the strategy for themselves. I invite you to try it for yourself and let me know how it goes!

In the meantime, Be Well, Work Well.