How to remove chaos from your calendar
In a world where calendars are overflowing with back-to-back meetings and no time to pause, many of us feel out of control.
It's often an honorable desire to be available and serve others well that leads us to pack our schedules. But in the end, our bandwidth to serve well actually shrinks as our own well-being deteriorates.
Watch this week's Two-Minute to learn my #1 strategy for removing chaos from my calendar. Take it and make it yours.
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Raise your hand if your calendar is just jam-packed: back-to-back meetings, no chance to catch a breath, let alone run to the bathroom and fill up your water, right?
Your schedule is just full. And so often, this comes out of a heart to serve, a desire to be available to your team or to your clients, and you allow things to get scheduled back to back. There's no time for you to hit pause on the chaos, rise above it and think strategically and proactively about the work, and certainly, no time to step away for personal matters.
And this heart to serve starts to over-rotate, and we start to feel bitter and less productive, maybe unhappy.
Unfortunately, we are the only people to blame for this issue. You are the only person who can actually control and manage your calendar. And this has been something that I have learned over the years.
I can remember a number of years ago when I really first took that step. I was trying to be more thoughtful about blocking my calendar, and my daughter's birthday was coming up. And I really wanted to make sure I was going to be home before school that morning to have breakfast with her before sending her off. And sure enough, a new opportunity came in, and it was a workshop that would've started really early in the morning. And I was tempted to take it. And then I thought, you know what, I am going to be so disappointed when that day arrives, and I'm leaving early and missing her morning if I say yes to this. And so I declined. And I think the bigger step here even was not just the declining, but it was not explaining to the client why I was declining. Instead, I just said, "I'm sorry, I have a previous obligation that day. Can we look at our calendars to find another time?"
We do not need to over-explain why we are reserving this time, whether it's for ourselves, whether it's for our family or friends, whether it's for strategic time for you in your work. It's just: I'm sorry, I have a previous obligation during this time. Let's look at our calendars and find another time.
And so, I want to encourage you this week, right now, to look at your calendar over the next couple of weeks, to block some strategic time for work things for yourself individually, as well as for personal things, and then to stick to them. When the requests come in to schedule on top of them, your response is: I'm sorry, I'm not available during that time. Can we find another time to tackle it?
It's as easy as that. And you will feel so good when you start to make this shift.
And guess what? You'll actually also be able to serve your team and your clients even better as a result.