Introduction
The saying is true, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.” Though the hyperbolic dumpster fire of metaphors are seldom true events, the inner turmoil of individuals and groups are very real. The tyranny of the urgent reigns supreme.
Whoever just messaged you last has your full attention. Yes, this meeting you are leading is important but first you must check this email that came in. Your current project has no resources due to all of them running off to go “do something for this real quick.” All week you hear yourself and others say yes to every urgent request and never anything that resembles hold on just a minute.
Pull back and watch the game tape. See the play being run past you. At the end of the day, you wonder what you accomplished, stressed at the little progress that has been made, and you still feel behind in everything.
I’ve felt this for years. I wanted to be on top of everything, never place anyone’s request on the backburner, and always wanted to finish early. I burned out fast. Thankfully, I read books like Cal Newport’s Deep Work and had friends show me the proven benefits of being organized. After practicing what I learned, I quickly found I was more rested, had higher quality work, never felt the need to work overtime to catch up, and was more involved at home with my family.
I can’t give you all the things I learned just in this little post, but I can break down some vital things about planning. The biggest change was when I started time blocking my schedule.
You Need to Time Block Your Daily Work Schedule
Planning your work day gives you control on what you will work on while informing you of your capacity. Even if you are not fully sure what your day might entail, set aside time to plan ahead. I set up time blocks on my work calendar that help me keep my day organized. A time block is a chunk of time set aside for a specific purpose. These fall into several session categories: Deep Work, Shallow Work, Office Visiting Hours, and WFH Office Visiting Hours. These keep me on track throughout the day. Though I don’t hold these as set-in-stone, they are great guides for me.
Deep Work Sessions
On your work calendar, setup blocks of time where you are busy and unreachable. That sounds insane but hear me out – it’s what changed my output forever. These are Deep Work Sessions. This is when you are working on very important tasks and you push yourself to the highest level of focus. I don’t listen to music, talk to others, or engage in digital channels of communication. All my cognitive attention is set on my work.
There is always the fear of getting in trouble over this but I haven’t yet. I’ve adjusted my notifications to not pop-up during this time. I answer them after my deep work sessions. I don’t ignore the messages, they just aren’t as important compared to the work I was hired to do, namely, difficult roadway design.
My deep work sessions are an hour minimum up to an hour and a half maximum. This is a very mentally strenuous time. If it’s too short, then your brain can’t reach a deep state of focus. If it’s too long, you fry your brain for the rest of the day and it becomes very unproductive afterwards.
These deep work sessions have proven to increase the quality of my work to the point that others remark about it. The time block keeps me from wanting to switch off to something else if things get hard. It also keeps me from spinning my wheels too long on a problem. I only have this much time to finish this task, I’ve gotta make a choice. If the work is bigger than I thought, I schedule the next deep work session later that day to get back into it. In total, I’ve found I can only focus like this for up to 6 hours a day. It isn’t possible or wise to do anymore than that.
Shallow Work Sessions
Afterwards, I spend up to half an hour writing down updated progress on my project. I usually write in my physical notebook while updating my project’s Trello board for others to see. During this time, I also handle what Cal Newport calls shallow work that is usually just communication efforts or paperwork. These are things that are of lower value and, if interrupted, aren’t in much risk of low quality output.
Office Visiting Hours
I want to work more towards this. The idea is to have office hours, like a college professor, where you are guaranteed reachable and available for anything. The secret behind this is the control over when people come over to talk to you.
For example, if someone comes over to you during your deep work session and their “quick question” is something that sounds like a 30 minute conversation, you can ask them to come see you later during your next office hour block. You aren’t ignoring them. They now have a time when you are fully focused on their concern. Sure, there will be times when you need to address something that is truly urgent or can be answered with one sentence. But not everything is urgent. I also doubt you’d offend people if you asked them to stop by at your office hours.
WFH Office Visiting Hours
If you’re worried about offending people with office visiting hours, virtual office hours will be much more positively received. The idea is to set your office visiting hours time block with a Teams meeting on your calendar. You’re the only invite and the only member in the meeting when it starts, but if your coworkers know of this, they can hop into your Teams meeting, talk about what they need to, and leave. With this strategy, you just made a frictionless way to provide drop-in questions for hybrid workers who might be discouraged to ask you for 15 minutes of your time.
In Conclusion
You should probably try time blocking your calendar. This will always be better than going into each day blind. Also, this gives you a clear answer to when you can work your next task. If someone is in need of work from you and asks to have it “sometime soon”, you can respond with, “That’s great! I will block out my entire Tuesday afternoon for this project. It will be my only concern. You’ll have it in your inbox Wednesday morning.” The message is clear, you are dedicating a full afternoon to it, and you told them when they would get it. Now, they have no need to send you a “Checking-in” email or a “Hey so when are you starting this?” Teams message. Being organized in your time let’s you have a chance at setting the expectations in a way you didn’t have before. Give it a try.
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