Revisit now: protect your blocked time!

Well begun is half done. Aristotle.

Frozen Unfrozen Lake

Pause

📆 Pause. Reflect on your past year. My first blog was Start now: move! On average, 7000 steps per day in 2021, that’s pretty good I’d think: I do not always carry my phone with me while exercising. I will continue at the same pace in 2022 and will even perhaps do better! It’s all about progress!

Now, I’d like to reflect on my regular weekly work schedule.
Why? Because it went wild at the end of 2021!
So … What happened? Was I able to preplan my weeks? Was I able to protect the slots of deep work I blocked? Was I able to prioritize? Did I process emails at scheduled timings as I intended to do? Was I able to reflect on the key calls in advance and prep?

Retro

I am used to block out time slots in my weekly schedule to do deep 🧠 work. I include short re-energizing breaks 🤸 in my schedule. I stand-up for a few minutes between calls. I remember to drink water during the day.
All good during the first part of the year 👌.

Little by little, without noticing, I found myself experimenting a jam-packed calendar. I even at times had to choose which call to attend, and which call to listen to later on. The deep work slots I blocked in my calendar vanished 👻. I found myself hopping from a call to the next. And playing catch-up at the end of the day. Argh!

Reflect

The recipe (probably less yummy than this one here🎂) that enabled me to completely mess my weekly plan out was: attending too many group calls and prioritizing these over my own plan … (yes, it is difficult to find time that works for all … yes, team is spread out in different time zones).

Add to this a pinch of long calls, a pinch of calls that overlap and at times a pinch of back-to-back calls … and some of your weeks can go wild in a snap.

Improve

🕙 So … time for me to improve. I have set time aside at the beginning of this year to think about this. Revisit my goals. Revisit my priorities. Revisit calls attendance and format. Did you also mess your weekly plan out? Not a problem, what’s important is to pause, reflect and start all fresh again. And try your best to make it stick!

Conclusion

💪 Protecting your blocked time will help you best reach your goals and be more satisfied with your contributions and life balance. Yes, you can! Happy 2022!

✍️ Any tips for the community? Share your preferred tips below!