Protect Your Calendar From Yourself

If you’re looking for a good first step toward reinventing your relationship with time, I suggest you start protecting your time and focus.

Imagine you have a boss that comes in your office at 8am and says,

“For the next hour, this is the most important thing. I only want you to do this one thing. Nothing else!”

You say “Great!” and get to work.

Now imagine your boss is back in your office five minutes later with your to-do list and says,

“Real quick, I just want you to look at all the other things you have to do today. Do you think you’ll be able to get all those things done? Actually, nevermind, just keep doing that one thing I told you to do.”

You might feel a bit anxious thinking about all those other things, and it might take you a few minutes to get back in the flow on your most important task.

10 minutes later your boss is back, this time with your computer open to your email inbox, saying,

“Hey, I know I told you to do that one thing, but can you check your email real quick? I’m not sure there’s anything important in there but shoot there might just be so I really want you to look.”

You look and nothing is on fire, but you see a few you know you’ll have to answer after this hour is over.

Again, a bit of stress is back and you’re now further distracted. It takes a few more minutes to get back in the zone, and those emails are still in the back of your head.    

How do you think this imagery scenario is going for you in terms of your ability to focus or get that “most important thing” done?

You know where this is headed.

You are your Time Boss. Why do you keep doing this to yourself?

You are responsible to protect your time and get that most important thing done.

Here’s where to start :: Carve out space to focus

How to get started carving out space to focus on the most important things:   

1. Create an event on your calendar and block time for a minimum of an hour a day for your important task. Just start with one hour. You’ll begin strengthening this muscle and can add more time as you go. 
2. Identify the most important outstanding task as your item to complete during this hour. 
3. Turn off your notifications, hide your to-do list, shut the door, ask whoever you need to for permission to be offline, whatever you have to do to just do that one important task during your scheduled hour.    

Do this for a week, and I bet you’ll never go back.