SUMMER REPLAY: How to Clear Your Calendar in Your Busiest Seasons

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Joel: While we’re on hiatus, we’re not just shuffling the archive. We went through everything, like scoured it. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen, like, those card catalogs they used to keep in libraries. Well, that’s actually how we keep all the episodes of Focus on This, and you should have seen Marissa and I pulling out the drawers and, like, rifling through, finger, finger, finger, thumb, thumb, thumb, all the way through every one of those cards, and we found all the best episodes.
[00:00:31] Marissa: Yeah, and we really asked ourselves the question, “Which episodes would we want every listener to have heard?” And that’s exactly the criteria that we used in these episodes. These are our very best. Some of them are past host of, what do they say, the ghost of-
[00:00:48] Joel: Christmas past …
[00:00:49] Marissa: past. This is like the- Yeah … the host of podcast past.
[00:00:53] Okay? Yeah. But we hope that you really enjoy these, and we think that you will. We think these are gonna be super relevant and super helpful, even though they weren’t recorded last week.
[00:01:04] Joel: The truth is, it was a challenge to narrow these suckers down, ’cause the archive is vast. I mean, the truth is, just like that library catalog, the, the card catalog at the library, it was like thousands upon thousands of millions of episodes.
[00:01:17] I might be overstating it, but a lot of episodes, and what that meant was we had to find the best of the best, and this is one of the ones that made the cut.
[00:01:26] Marissa: So go ahead and hit play and enjoy.
[00:01:35] Courtney: So last week, yes. I obviously, like normally, I, I would say that my schedule is pretty full in the sense that like I have a full-time job, my husband has a full-time job, I have a 10-month-old, you know? Like, that’s the big k- kicker.
[00:01:50] Marissa: Few things.
[00:01:50] Courtney: Uh, but yeah. Last week was one of those weeks where it just was too much all of a sudden.
[00:01:59] I very sadly had a death in, uh, my family. Um, and so obviously there were funerals and visitations and, and just a lot of like mental, emotional energy around that. I was packing for a vacation, uh, which for those of you that pack with small children, it’s like, “Oh, do we have to bring the whole house, uh, to the other location?”
[00:02:23] ‘Cause that’s kinda how this felt. Yeah, just about. I mean, like, should we even ever leave? I don’t know. Uh, we had family pictures, family pictures which I had not planned ahead of before this death in the family had happened. So no plan for family photos, and then we had friends in from Brazil. It was like too much all in one week.
[00:02:47] Verbs: In the course of… In a week?
[00:02:49] Courtney: In a week. My goodness. Really, honestly, all, all between Monday and Friday, all of these things happened. It was completely overwhelming. And so I’m curious today, I mean, I think we’re gonna be talking about how when things kind of, when your schedule just all of a sudden becomes chaotic like that, what advice, uh, do you have for me in that situation?
[00:03:15] Blake: Did you try curling up in the fetal position in the corner of a room?
[00:03:20] Verbs: Right. Can we use your life as a case study as we go through these, these points for today?
[00:03:25] Courtney: Yes. I think, I think we can. Um, I did not try that one. I definitely tried some things, um, that I think were helpful, but I’m just curious always to kind of pick up any tips that you two might have along the way.
[00:03:40] Blake: Mm-hmm. You could go the opposite route as well. I don’t know if you tried. Did you try yelling just, like, at anyone? Just- ”
[00:03:48] What? Dude, get over there.” “No, not over there, over there.”
[00:03:55] That’s what I do sometimes too. Okay. Okay. Just tell
[00:03:57] Courtney: people
[00:03:57] Blake: to get over there.
[00:03:59] Courtney: Great. I’m gonna try that. Mortal Kombat. That feels like solid advice right there.
[00:04:04] Verbs: Well, Courtney, with all of that going on in the course of one week, I think the good news for you and those listening today is that we’re gonna be talking about the four keys that help us to triage our calendar so you can leverage those during your whole week, not just at work, but then also at home. So that way you can get back to some regular breathing room, a little space, a little margin.
[00:04:24] So let’s talk about those.
[00:04:26] Courtney: And guys, I just realized I didn’t even say we had strategic planning last week. So- You’re making this up now … that’s just for y’all. I, I swear. You’re writing, you’re writing stories. It was bananas.
[00:04:37] Verbs: How? Like, how?
[00:04:40] Courtney: I don’t know. I like- How swings … every day I was like, “Okay, I just have to
[00:04:45] Blake: do the next hour.”
[00:04:45] And you’re, like, so spent and you’re like, “All right, the marketing team’s strategic objective is gonna be wearing purple every Wednesday. I don’t know”
[00:04:56] Verbs: Welcome to another episode of Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet, so you can banish distractions, get the right stuff done, and finally start loving Mondays. I’m Virbs, here with Courtney Baker and Blake Stratton. Happy Monday to both of you, individually and collectively.
[00:05:16] Blake: How’s it going?
[00:05:17] I felt that happy Monday. I’ve got a warm little bakery of happy Monday goodness in my heart. I, I don’t know. But I’m in a good mood. Thank, thanks, Virbs.
[00:05:29] Verbs: Absolutely. Good to see you guys.
[00:05:32] Courtney: Yeah, happy Monday. Virbs, we had our first, like, onboarding webinar, and it was amazing. Hey. Right?
[00:05:39] Verbs: It was. It was.
[00:05:42] Courtney: I think we had…
[00:05:43] Uh, when Virbs and I got on there to start the webinar, Blake, um, I said, I was like, “I like to pretend that nobody listens to the podcast,” right? ‘Cause it’s just the four of us sitting on this, you know, this Riverside Zoom thing, you know, talking to each other. Like,
[00:06:00] Marissa: there
[00:06:00] Courtney: is no- Down by the riverside … yeah, there’s no real back and forth on, you know, hearing from the audience, you know?
[00:06:05] Sure. It’s kind of a one-way street here. Sorry, guys. But we get on this webinar and Virbs and I start talking. In the chat, Blake, I have never seen a webinar chat move as fast as the chat was moving in this Full Focus webinar. It was like… And I, I looked at Virbs and I was like, “I think there’s a lot of people here with us today, Virbs.”
[00:06:30] Verbs: I was trying not to watch just so I could stay focused. Saw what I did there?
[00:06:34] Courtney: But I, I do see what, uh, you did there. Thanks for pointing that out. But I was gonna say, for everybody that joined us, thank you for doing that, and just know we’re gonna have another one of those, um, here in the next couple of months, so be looking for that.
[00:06:53] I think today we’re just gonna dive in. We’re gonna go straight into the meat of this episode, because I think this is something everybody struggles with, and especially in the fourth quarter. You know, I think there are, a lot of times, vacations. You may be going on a vacation this week, actually. A lot of people are out for fall break.
[00:07:12] Verbs: Mm.
[00:07:12] Courtney: You’ve got the holidays coming up. It’s just, it can get overwhelming really quickly. And so, you know, this episode is all about how to kinda triage your calendar and still leave margin for you to flex and be successful this quarter.
[00:07:32] Blake: Absolutely. We’ve got four keys to triage that calendar, make it more livable.
[00:07:39] And let’s get… Let’s just dive in. What’s the first key to get back some breathing room in your life this quarter?
[00:07:47] Courtney: Okay, key number one is clarify your priorities. And I kind of find myself falling into this trap a little bit. You know, sometimes I realize I haven’t clarified my priorities, and I find myself…
[00:08:02] This especially af- I feel like on the weekends happens, where it’s like- Mm-hmm … I have something I need to do, but all of a sudden I’m like, “I should probably fold these clothes.” And it’s like, no, no, no, that’s not the priority. Obviously that’s a, a life example, but I think that happens with our, our work, you know, priorities as well.
[00:08:20] Mm-hmm. So calendar triage really starts by identifying what you most want to prioritize. You know, and then your t- your time can really be allocated appropriately once you’ve determined that. You know, it’s hard to do until you’ve really taken the time to identify what you want to prioritize. A- and that moment when I get sucked into like, “I should probably fold these clothes right now,” ’cause I’m a doer, you know, I’m like, “Let’s check these things off,” uh, it’s not the thing that I need to prioritize.
[00:08:49] Blake: The challenge with this step is it’s the most important step ’cause it’s the filter for everything else. Mm-hmm. Having prior… If you don’t know what’s important, then it’s gonna be really hard to do any triaging, ’cause then you’re just eliminating stuff and you’re not certain what the cost is. The challenge is that if you’re unclear about your priorities, you need to take some time to get clear.
[00:09:13] You actually need to pause the rush for a minute.
[00:09:16] Joel: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:17] Blake: It’s part of why we emphasize things like a weekly preview, taking a little bit of time to consider your, your week ahead and, and what your top three priorities would be for the week, or even a, a daily preview. We don’t call it that, but that’s kinda what it looks like for me in the morning, where you’re looking at your day and identifying what’s most important.
[00:09:36] Mm-hmm. The reason those are so important to install as habits is because it’s hard to just, when you’re feeling so busy, to say, “You know what’s gonna be the most productive thing right now, is for me to pause and reflect for a minute.” It, it feels like… At least for me, it feels like the last instinct I have ’cause I’m just trying to go, go, go.
[00:09:55] So- Right … I think that’s kind of the- The key with this key, a double key for you Yeah. Well, I think,
[00:10:02] Courtney: I think that’s really true of like if you define productivity as thinking intentionally about your work, then that’s what it takes to be productive, is that second to stop and say, “Okay, what is important for me to do?”
[00:10:18] Mm-hmm. And it, it is counterintuitive. I think that is why it’s hard. And so having these things built in to help you prioritize is really key. Yeah. That’s what it’s all about.
[00:10:28] Verbs: And I think, too, the distinction of what’s important for me to do, and that might mean not just work-wise, but then also personally, as again, we look at ourselves- Mm-hmm
[00:10:37] as holistic people, which, you know, I’m with Blake on that weekly preview setup, is now more than, I won’t say now more than ever, but that self-care portion of the weekly preview helps you think through those questions like, all right, what people do I need to spend time with or do I need to prioritize during this next season?
[00:10:55] Maybe it’s somebody you haven’t connected with all year and you say, “Hey, I don’t want this year to pass without connecting with s- so and so, or my best friend, or, you know, the uncle I haven’t spoken with in a while.” What sort of things personally do you wanna prioritize as well and make space for that as you reflect on how you wanna land, land, uh, Q4?
[00:11:14] Blake: Absolutely. One last thing. Uh, I had the same thought when I was thinking through the upcoming quarter, getting into the fourth quarter. I had this thought of, man, I remember how I felt trying to take myself back to the beginning of this year and going, what did I really hope would happen this year? Maybe it was a friendship, maybe it was a specific goal to hit.
[00:11:36] This is kind of that time and I’m, I’m like, “I don’t really wanna have another New Year’s time where I’m like, oh, I wish that… Or maybe we can do that next year.” And to me, that was just sort of a kind of visual, emotional filter for what really needs my time, what needs my money, what needs my energy. So I don’t know if that would help anyone listening, but thinking through, oh yeah, the next thing that happens is New Year’s after the fourth quarter.
[00:12:02] What, what still is on the table that I wanna take advantage of is gonna be a great filter for you.
[00:12:13] Courtney: Key number two is to evaluate your commitments. So obviously, if you don’t look ahead at what’s coming, it’s going to start feeling like life is just happening to you. And listen, we all have those seasons. Mm. Frankly, that’s how it was for me last week. It felt like, wow, this feels like all of a sudden I’m not really in control of what’s happening, just things are coming so quickly.
[00:12:37] And sometimes that’s unavoidable. You know, it, it just happens based on circumstances. But what we wanna do is be ahead enough so that you can really plan for those things. Um, and again, at this point, your calendar is probably a- already feeling full. I think we all- Yeah … kinda walk around with pretty packed schedules.
[00:12:58] Um, culturally, that’s kind of our MO. I mean, do you two agree with that?
[00:13:03] Verbs: No, absolutely.
[00:13:04] Blake: Absolutely.
[00:13:05] Verbs: Yeah. I mean, again, it’s, it’s you have work calendars, you have personal, uh, calendars as well. And again, I think just with the introduction of holiday season, you know-
[00:13:15] Courtney: Mm-hmm …
[00:13:15] Verbs: automatically the tank goes up ’cause it’s, it’s family stuff, it’s, you know, other personal stuff, it’s work stuff.
[00:13:21] So for sure. Yeah. Full calendars. Full calendars for everyone.
[00:13:25] Courtney: Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, coming off a week like I had last week, it was really important for me this week as part of my weekly preview to kinda look at the calendar ahead and, and say to myself, you know, this, this is really serving me, not the other way around.
[00:13:40] Mm. You know, I’m not gonna continue to let this week, you know, last week run into this week. You know, again, that’s why that weekly preview time is so important for us to have that time to really reset. We talked about that in a recent episode. You know, it’s kinda like a fresh start, and it certainly was for me this week.
[00:13:56] Blake: One of the best ways when you’re evaluating your commitments, what’s on your calendar, you’re gonna see appointments and meetings. Some of those meetings will have been booked months ago. Sometimes they’re just recurring meetings A question you can ask yourself is if you are taking some time in a weekly preview, for instance, to, to look ahead at the next week or two weeks and just go, “What is the key outcome I’m trying to get from that meeting, and why is that so important to have this week?”
[00:14:24] ‘Cause sometimes you can eliminate a meeting, but you still need that outcome. And what I mean is, if you can identify that question and be like, “Oh, all I really need to know is what my boss thinks about X process,” or something. Maybe that’s something you can send in a, in a quick, you know, video, voice memo, email.
[00:14:42] Verbs: Yeah.
[00:14:43] Blake: And just eliminate the meeting ’cause you identified the, the key outcome and what outcome is so important to have this week by that meeting. Sometimes you, if you can’t identify it, then just volley it to the people you’re meeting with and be like, “Hey, do I need to be there? S- you know, I’m kind of overloaded.
[00:14:56] I have these other priorities.” So yeah, consider, consider those commitments, make sure you’re clear on why you’re doing it, and if it’s, like Courtney said, if it’s serving you.
[00:15:05] Verbs: Yeah, I think that’s good ’cause even just to get a meeting on the books, we know this from trying to organize podcast recording days.
[00:15:12] Mm-hmm. Getting everybody’s calendar- Yeah … and the conversation, the time it takes to have that conversation, that could be a week and a half before we all get on the same page. So I like what you said, Blake. It’s like, can this just be a message to whoever I need this information from to keep things on track?
[00:15:26] And then asking that, that question, is this important right now, or is it something that could wait, you know, to the top of the year or what have you? Um, I think all those will help us get clarity on matching our priorities and aligning our commitments with those.
[00:15:53] Courtney: So key number three is exercise your no muscle. And I think for me, what really helps me is to reframe my yeses to think about, okay, if I say yes to this, I’m actually saying no- Mm-hmm … to something else. And to have that in my mind of like, okay, w- I’m saying no to XYZ by saying yes to this really helps me flex this muscle And frankly, there are probably already commitments on your calendar that shouldn’t be there.
[00:16:30] Verbs: That’s good.
[00:16:30] Courtney: Yeah.
[00:16:31] Verbs: Yes.
[00:16:32] Blake: Well, let’s talk about that, ’cause I think it’s, it’s one thing to say, “Hey, I, uh, am gonna start saying no a little bit more.” But if people are already feeling like they’re overbooked, y- you know, w- what about, uh, well, I did… I said that I would do this, or, you know, I, I’m committed to this.
[00:16:51] Is it an, an integrity issue? Or is it a- Right … is it gonna reflect poorly on me to back out? Yeah. I’m asking for a friend, Courtney.
[00:17:00] Courtney: Yeah. No, you can totally… And actually, we go into this in more detail in Free to Focus. Obviously, if you’ve made a commitment, you need to– You’ve given your word, and you need to follow through with that, but here’s a tactic that you could use.
[00:17:14] You could say, “Hey, I know I committed to doing this, um, but I’ve realized, um, that it would be better for someone else to fulfill this commitment. Um, I would love to help you find that person, um, and I’m willing to go, you know, help you source that. If we can’t find someone, then I’m going to follow through with what I’ve committed on.”
[00:17:36] And so it’s basically a win-win for everybody. You know, you’re helping them find somebody that’s better, um, ’cause they probably have more time to do it or, or might be more invested. Yeah. Um, but you’re still saying, “Hey, I’m– when I give my word to something, I’m gonna follow through with it.” Again, we’re not saying just, like, back out of all your commitments.
[00:17:55] I know sometimes that does feel tempting. It would just be like, let’s just reset all this. Um, but long-term, that’s probably not the best move forward. Um, but there is a way that you can, um, talk to the commitments you have made and try to, try to provide a good path forward without you being involved.
[00:18:13] Verbs: Yeah. And I think that’s good with, um, what Blake mentioned is it’s an integrity thing, and it all comes from the posture of how you… I mean, it’s gonna take humility for you to go back to whatever you said yes to and say, “Hey, I realize I said yes to this. I’m not just writing it off. I do wanna be a part of it, but I’m recognizing that I’m limited with my time here, and what I’ve said yes to, I wanna be able to give focus and attention to that the way I know that it deserves to be given.
[00:18:38] So can we do, you know, whether can we delay it, or can I help you find somebody else that could probably do much better of a job at this, this commitment than I can currently?” But yeah, I think, one, integrity drives that as well as just the humility of not trying to push through knowing that you’re gonna give, you know, a half-cooked job on whatever the commitment is also.
[00:18:58] Courtney: And I, I don’t know, I don’t wanna speak for all people that manage people out there, but I gotta say for my team, when they come to me and say, “Hey, I’ve got this meeting, and, you know, I’m not sure that it’s the highest leverage use of my time, you know, here’s my reasoning behind that,” guys, it is like a gold star for me.
[00:19:21] Marissa: Mm.
[00:19:21] Courtney: I’m like, this person is thinking really intentional about how to use their time in the highest leverage way. To me, that’s such a great sign. And so for those of you out there that think, “Hey, I just have to go to all these meetings,” like, “I have no agency in what I attend and, and don’t attend,” I gotta say, for me, I think that’s a really powerful tool.
[00:19:46] So I would say try it out, you know, especially if you’re like, there’s this… Especially standing meetings, guys. I, I feel like a lot of times they’re just there, people are sitting around, not so much in our company, but, uh, former companies I’ve been a part of, it’s just, like, not, it’s not high leverage for people.
[00:20:04] Blake: Right. Yeah, and if all that doesn’t work, just ghost them.
[00:20:14] Let’s move on to key four, plan for obstacles. This is maybe my favorite key of all the keys, planning for obstacles. So often I’ve been guilty of saying, “Well, I would’ve done this or that. I could have accomplished that, but this unexpected thing happened and I was stuck. It’s not my fault.” And what I’ve noticed is that you can actually expect the unexpected.
[00:20:45] Hmm.
[00:20:46] If I look back, I, I journal essentially every day, and I have for several years. If I look back, sometimes I’ll even look back, it’ll be like on this day a year ago, and it’s wild how much sometimes history can repeat itself. Like, oh, there was something that came up September of last year, something that came up September the year before.
[00:21:05] You can expect the unexpected, and in fact, to not expect obstacles to happen, it’s not the obstacle’s fault. You know, ultimately where you take responsibility is where you can find some power over your life and over your calendar. So expect the unexpected to happen and plan accordingly.
[00:21:28] Verbs: Yeah. I think, Blake, what’s important is just kind of like the other keys we’ve spoken about today as far as priorities, examining or, uh, evaluating your commitments.
[00:21:38] It’s like just because we have a calendar, we don’t have to, we don’t have to cram a day with commitments and tasks and projects. If we have white space and margin, then that’s good. We shouldn’t feel the need to put something in its place, ’cause often that could be a, a commitment to yourself of just having think time or just a time to kind of think about what needs to happen or time to just kind of be off, uh, off stage for a minute.
[00:22:03] So having to feel like everything has to be, um, scheduled so tight throughout the day is really, is not giving us, uh, is not setting us up for a win for the end of the year. But it’s okay to have a space to where there’s nothing planned, ’cause really that’s a commitment to yourself that you probably need that space to reset a little bit before you continue on to the next commitment and get that buffer time to be able to set yourself up for, for a healthy win.
[00:22:26] Blake: For me, I notice when I get really busy weeks, and I’m t- I’ll be transparent, I’m still not as good at this as I would like to be. But a great example was, uh, a couple weeks in, in mid-September, had a lot of personal stuff that happened in our family as well as, uh, it was a really busy week, um, for my team and myself, and my calendar got so overscheduled.
[00:22:50] The first thing that falls is a lot of what I would call low leverage admin tasks. They’re the things that aren’t super important, and they don’t have to happen right now, but if you don’t do them, eventually
[00:23:02] Courtney: Yeah …
[00:23:03] Blake: you lose money, or you lo- you miss appointments, you miss opportunities, or you pay more, you know, like, whatever it is.
[00:23:09] And, uh, I had to recommit to doing a habit I used to do, which is not just leave a white space in my Google Calendar for appointments, but actually making sure I’ve scheduled at least an hour during my workday that’s just admin. I call it the admin hour. And it’s… It just functions really as a buffer.
[00:23:30] Sometimes I don’t even need it, but I’m so grateful I had it. It’s really easy to move around. If someone says, “Hey, can you meet at 2:00?” Uh, but 1:00 is wide open, I’ll just move the admin hour up to 1:00 and, you know, it’s flexible. But I keep that block of time available, and I redefine what full looks like in my calendar so that-
[00:23:51] Joel: Hmm
[00:23:51] Blake: I’m not overscheduling and then paying a price for it, staying up late trying to send emails, and that sort of thing. So build buffer, everyone. Plan for those obstacles.
[00:24:02] Verbs: Bob the buffer builder.
[00:24:07] Courtney: All right, here we go. Bob.
[00:24:12] Verbs: So the good news is you don’t have to feel swept away by the fourth quarter. You can take back your calendar by clarifying your priorities, evaluating your commitments, exercising your no muscle, and planning for obstacles. So, uh, Blake Courtney, any final thoughts for the listeners today?
[00:24:30] Courtney: Well, we talked about this earlier, but I’m gonna hit on it again.
[00:24:34] Part of this, you may need to negotiate with others, and so here’s some ideas, some questions to kind of guide you through that. You know, maybe you’re one-on-one with this, with your boss this week. You don’t feel like you need their guidance, and so maybe you ask like, “Hey, this week, I, I think I’m all caught up on the things I need from you.
[00:24:56] You know, would it be a possibility for us to skip our meeting this week?” You know, could your team meeting accomplish the most important work if it were 30 minutes shorter? This… I’m all about this, guys. I love to challenge how short I can make a meeting. In the book Shorter, there’s actually a company that reset all of their meeting times to 20 minutes, ’cause we just like naturally, 60 minutes, that’s how long a meeting is.
[00:25:25] There’s no like rhyme or reason. That’s just what we do. And so y- you know, maybe challenge yourself on could we do our meetings in a shorter amount of time? So hopefully those are some helpful ways that, again, this week and as we go into the holiday season, you can kind of negotiate with others to kind of build in, um, some of the things that we talked about today.
[00:25:50] Verbs: Thank you for joining us on Focus on This. This is the most productive podcast on the internet, so share it with your friends. Don’t forget to join our Full Focus Planner community on Facebook, and we’ll be here next week with another great episode. So until then… Stay
[00:26:07] Marissa: focused.