BLUF: How do you maintain space in your calendar when people will fill it with meetings via online scheduling?
In the "Right of first refusal" podcast there were a number of good ideas, however, they seemed contradictory to me and have proved to be so as I try to put them into practice. The ideas included:
- schedule your priorities into the calendar to avoid others taking up your time
- don't just block time in the calendar to prevent others scheduling you
- try to maintain 25% free space in your calendar each day
Where I am having problems is particularly in the last recommendation (around free space). If you do this, people quickly start scheduling into those gaps, reducing your free space in the process. If you block time for free space it's counter to the second recommendation above, and if you schedule in your priorities it reduces the opportunity to have the free space recommended each day.
Have others experienced these conflicting tensions? How do you ensure you have 25%+ free time in your calendar each day? Any advice from the forum?
When someone sends you an
When someone sends you an invitation, decline it or propose a new time.
That's the "refusal" part that you seem to be missing.
Thanks Tom - I get that
Thanks Tom - I get that part, however, Mark and Mike talked about putting your priorities in the calendar so that people won't schedule into time that you should be working on those priorities. If, however, at the same time you always have 25% of your day's unscheduled (as they also suggest in the cast) then people will just schedule into that time, quickly filling up the free space. Where I'm struggling and would like to hear people's suggestions is on tips/tricks/advice for maintaining that 25% free space each day.
I think the point of having
I think the point of having that time free is so that they can schedule into it. If your priority is to get out with your team and spend 2 hours in the morning and then another hour in the afternoon, you schedule that in as unavailable. This should prevent others from scheduling meeting dying those times.
Mac
And you won't get that immediately
It's been a while since I listened to this cast.
I backed into blocking the time on my calendar. Start by blocking time a few weeks out. I'm sure your calendar is packed for the next couple of weeks. You can block off 1-2 hours a day starting 2-3 weeks out. Make those blocked off sections recurring so that they are blocked from now until the end of the world. As you get tasks where you need to spend time, put them into your pre-arranged windows of free time.
I get meeting requests all of the time that overlap my plans. But the advantage of this process is:
1 - If I accept the meeting, I know what I'm sacrificing. I can make a priority call on the spot.
2 - The time is blocked in the calendar. So if I decline, it's easy for me to say, "I can't make the meeting I'm already booked."
Lastly, I think they make a point in the cast of saying not to use this as a weapon. At least in my company, I get meeting invites out of the blue frequently. Some of these I need to attend. When I do, I either, delegate something I needed to do, work late one night or block off an extra chunk of time in the future to catch up.
-Dan
The idea of blocking time
The idea of blocking time out is to ensure that you assign time to the things that are important but may get missed if you don't plan to work on them. The reason for leaving some time free is that you will still need to do things at shorter notice so there's no point expecting to be able to spend 100% of the time working on what you intended to a week ago.
The issue of people 'taking' that time is different. It may be 'easier' to say you can't attend a meeting because you're busy but it's likely to be less effective than dealing with the fact you think it isn't actually important for you to be there, worth your time etc.
If you schedule ALL your time then people will just stop caring whether your calendar says you're free and book stuff anyway, or phone and ask you to confirm manually. If I'm working on a important project and you're delaying the critical path indefinitely because you won't schedule 30 mins then you'll quickly end up with superiors getting involved and over-ruling you which is bad for a number of reasons.
Um, one more thing....
....There's always the possibility that the meeting someone else wants you to attend is more important than your priorities. Remember, it's not always about you. HNUT 2000 has what I believe is a good process, above.