Quick Tip – Fiercely Protect Your Time
Your calendar is your friend – Issue #67
“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower
Yesterday, in my Slack career community, we were talking about the challenges of making time for all of your most important tasks and activities. It seems like something always creeps into your day and derails your plans.
Before you know it, the day has gone by, and you haven’t accomplished what you thought you would. There are a few strategies for protecting your time and focusing on what matters most.
One of your first steps can be to put all of your activities into an Eisenhower Decision Matrix. Determine how urgent and vital each task is.
Urgent and Important Tasks need your prompt attention, of course (e.g., finishing your tax return)
Not Urgent but Important Tasks deserve your attention, but we tend to put them off and sacrifice them (e.g., investing in your career)
Urgent and Not Important Tasks are the usual firefighting activities that we should learn to avoid or delegate (e.g., a coworker asks for an immediate favor)
Not Urgent and Not Important Tasks are sometimes useful for relaxing (e.g., reading for entertainment), but often they are wasting our time and providing no value (e.g., scrolling through Facebook)
A quick way to make time for essential tasks that aren’t urgent is to schedule them on your calendar. For example, making time every morning for an hour of exercise. Block off the time and protect it.
Don’t let anyone else see what you have scheduled. I made that mistake once.
Someone tried to book me in an 8 AM meeting, but I said that I was busy. They asked what I was doing at that time, and I explained that it was my morning session at the gym.
They said, “Oh, that’s not as important as this meeting. Can you just skip it this one time?”
Well, that one time became two times. Then, it became a recurring meeting and ruined my exercise schedule. Never again!
Don’t let anyone schedule crap on top of your protected time (e.g., some meaningless work meeting). Whatever they want from you can usually wait.
Elon Musk, Jeff Weiner, and Richard Branson also schedule blocks of time for uninterrupted thinking. How often do you do that?
“Use that buffer time to think big, catch up on the latest industry news, get out from under that pile of unread emails, or just take a walk,” Weiner suggests. “The buffer is the best investment you can make in yourself and the single most important productivity tool I use.”
Branson says, “Open your calendar and schedule time just to dream.”
“Need to have long uninterrupted times to think. Can’t be creative otherwise,” Musk tweeted.
Your time is your most valuable resource. You can’t get more of it, no matter how hard you try (unless you have a time machine).
Protect it fiercely.
Invest it wisely.
Don’t let someone else decide how you should spend your precious time.