Photo by Ann poan
It’s Monday, the first chance of your week to start and finish off strong. You’ve got a busy calendar and tasks to crush. Your motivation is an all time high. But as soon as you get settled at your desk to begin your work, you start picking up on all of the noise. Was it always this loud? Why is my desk so close to the door? Have I always been distracted by the sheer amount of people that walk in and out of here? I’m already getting pinged on a couple of slack threads. Let me get to these right now. Oh what? I have my first meeting in 30 mins and the block lasts until 1pm? Okay… so I can actually begin my work after 2pm, because I am going to lunch right after these meetings.
Yes. You read that right, I am going to lunch and no one can stop me.
The example above is a typical scheduled day in my life. Emphasis on scheduled because there are so many days where I get additional meetings / working sessions added to my 2-5pm. And I also have a couple of days where I am blessed by the meeting Gods who only give me 1 standup for the day and THAT’S IT. #bless
So, how do I get my work done? How do I get my projects/work moving forward even though I have so many meeting blocks? The simple answer is good communication and good planning.
My philosophy on life is that I work to live, and not live to work. So this means that I’m not going to kill myself trying to hit some deadline. Luckily, I work at a company that understands that deadlines are usually arbitrary because we don’t: ship a physical product and we don’t make promises for when something is going to go live. So please take my story with a grain of salt, but also understand that these techniques can be applied to your situation anyway. Just like everything else in life, you gotta figure out how to make things work for you.
Without further ado, let’s jump into the techniques I utilize in order to be productive while having a really busy calendar.
Tip 1: Calendar Blocking
BLOCK YOUR CALENDAR. You need to weaponize your calendar. By that I mean using the “focus” feature in Google calendar. By the way, I’m going to be exclusively talking about Google Calendar because that’s what I use.
You need to set a “focus” event for lunch, and when you need actual focus time. Why do you need to make a “focus” event? This is because “focus” events automatically declines meetings that someone tries to just add to your calendar. Amazing. A lot of people in my office do this, and so do I. For your focus block, a message like “Please message before scheduling” should suffice.
What if no one does this in your office? Great! Now you can bring this up as a pain point in your team meetings. There’s a good chance that other teammates will agree with you and now you and your team can set a new standard.
Tip 2: Plan out your week
I loveeee planning out my week. I think it’s so important to set clear priorities and goals for your day and week. When I start getting overwhelmed by how much work I have to do and how distracting the office is, I look at my list and see what’s something easy I can accomplish relatively quickly and get to it. I do this for a couple of reasons:
1. I actually accomplish something that needed to be done
2. The dopamine hit from crossing off a task feels freaking amazing
So how do I do my planning?
- I do a mind dump of everything I need to do: meetings, tasks, follow ups, etc.
I just write down everything that’s needed to be done for the week, get it all out - Then I start breaking up tasks into way smaller tasks
- Smaller tasks = easier to accomplish = more things to cross off and get the dopamine hit from
- Don’t fall into the trap of over optimizing — KEEP IT GENERAL
- Smaller tasks = easier to accomplish = more things to cross off and get the dopamine hit from
- Then I schedule my tasks throughout the week
Tip 3: Be Flexible with your plans
While it can be tempting to make your days full, please don’t. Being busy does NOT mean that you’re being productive. Also, understand this — plans change all of the time, so you need room for flexibility. By being flexible and adaptable, you give yourself a better chance to be able to get your work done while being kind to your mental health.
Tip 4: Communicate with your Stakeholders
If your calendar is booked, it’s pretty difficult to get your work done. Especially if your small pockets of free time are also being spent answering slack messages. Take a breath and remember that meetings are also work. When it’s time to give your update, use this opportunity to be honest. Tell your stakeholders why you won’t be able to get xyz out on time and work with your team to figure out how you can get that piece of the project out. Maybe this means that your 2x a week meeting can be cut down to one meeting. Maybe that means that you will have to delegate that task to someone else on your team. Either way, this means that you are unblocking this piece of the project and pushing it forward.
Tip 5: Pushback!
If you’re worried about being the person that’s not onboard with something, don’t be! From my experience, people are more impressed when you push back because it shows that you don’t just blindly accept assignments but instead evaluate them based on their importance, feasibility, and how aligned they are with the project. This means that you don’t just accept any actionable tasks from a meeting. Remember that you’re trying to get work done so that a project can be completed. You can’t be expected to finish your tasks in a timely manner if you keep getting more work added. If it’s a nice to have, don’t make it a priority! Push back!
Those are my tips! I like to follow the K.I.S.S method because why overcomplicate things?
If you liked this article, and are maybe struggling to stay productive in a busy office, please give my article on how I stay productive while working in a distracting office a read!
Hope these were helpful! Please let me know if you give them a try!! I’d also be interested in knowing what productivity tips you use for when you’ve got a very busy calendar too!
xx
