The Power Of A Time-Block

Last year, I worked with a Director from Microsoft who was feeling overwhelmed and overloaded.

Sarah is mission-driven, wanted to create an impact in her work and world, and is a high achiever.

When we started to work together, she was also feeling "scattered, disorganized, unfocused, tired, not enough time for value-add work" and so on.

You likely feel this way too with a lot on your plate. Things are busy at work. And at home.  You push yourself, have high standards and feel like you have something to prove.

Somehow, you’re juggling all the balls (but silently worrying you’ll drop one).

Sound familiar?

Sarah wanted to protect her time more to create breathing space and focus on projects where she felt she added the most value, instead of fighting fires or in meetings all day.

For four weeks, she made one small change in her day that had a huge impact.

From this one change, Sarah shared . . .

"My stress level is lower, I am more productive, confident, have more peace of mind, my anxiety went down, it allowed productive time and down time, brought calmness, I follow through more consistently". Her words.

What did she do?

Sarah added a recurring two-hour daily time-block in her calendar (which is a strategy I share with all my clients wanting this same thing, and something that was a game-changer for me a few years ago when I went from burning out to taking back control of my time).

She started to protect her time. She felt more in control of her day. She had time for value-added work and to catch-up on tasks the next day.

She could leave at 5pm feeling a sense of accomplishment and without feeling guilty knowing that she had that blocked focus time in her calendar the next day.

Sarah also shared with her team what she was up to, seeking to lead by example (even for those who thought it was unrealistic).

You can have the best intentions and understand your important work and priorities, but until you get deliberate about creating space in your day for these things, you’ll keep falling into the trap of being scattered, reactive, unfocused, and your day controlling you.

There are several actions you can take, such as strong boundaries, focusing your energy and attention in a positive and productive way or getting clear on your real priorities.

To be set up for success for all of those strategies, you'll have to give yourself some buffer in your day and time to focus.

You can start to do this by blocking at least two hours of time in your calendar daily to accomplish your priorities and have time to think. This is your "focus time".

When I suggest that to busy leaders, they usually reply "There's no way I can block two hours every day!"

But, if these are the most important things you need to do to forward your goals and highest value contribution, can you afford not to carve out this time?

If you don't block time for yourself, you know how it will likely end – with you getting caught up in all sorts of reactive things, then scrambling at the end of the day, and work seeping into your personal time.

Experts say ideally you have at least 50% of your time blocked to focus. I expect that may be more than you are willing to bite off right now, so even starting with two hours gives you dedicated time to think and do what matters.

Even if your calendar is jam-packed now, if you start right now with this recurring time-block, soon enough it will start to free up time for you.

This small change can make a pretty big difference. Imagine how you would feel with two hours of focus time each day in your calendar?

I encourage you to go ahead and add this into your calendar right away, and see for yourself the difference it can make. Let me know how it goes!

What Next?

You can sign up for Stacey's masterclass, The Confident "No" here.

Stacey L. Olson is a Leadership and Certified Positive Psychology Coach, has 15 years of corporate experience and has gone through her own transformational change from burning out to balanced in life while performing at a high level (both in her corporate career and own business). She works with professionals who want to work less, live more and be their best even with all the demands, high expectations and messiness of everyday life. Stacey is the founder of The Balanced Leader™ program and offers executive and leadership coaching, workshops, and speaking.