Consolidate your meetings

Become more productive by protecting open blocks of time

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to consolidate your time specific meetings or appointments.
The more you can do this, the more open space
you can have in the rest of your life, which
can allow you to focus more deeply on other things.

(00:32):
So here's a question. Let's say you were trying to
place three hour long meetings into a workday.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
You get to pick the times. Where would you choose
to put them? So I would probably try to put
them at two o'clock, three o'clock, and four o'clock. If
I was trying to build in a little space in
case one ran over, I might try to do one thirty,
two thirty and four. But as much as possible, I

(01:00):
would try to put the meetings close together, and I
would try to put them later in the day. That
would leave the entire morning open for working on projects
that couldn't be neatly chopped up into our long blocks.
The reason I'd put the meetings in the afternoon is
that I tend to have a little less energy in
the afternoon. But most people do go to scheduled meetings

(01:22):
regardless of how they feel. Most of us have a
harder time doing more speculative, creative, or nebulous things when
we are flagging. But even if you put all the
meetings in the morning, I would still recommend putting them
all together. That's because anything time specific on a calendar
tends to make people stop what they are doing at

(01:44):
least a few minutes before, and then it takes time
to get back into focused work afterwards. That can be
a problem if you have a bigger task on your
to do list that is going to require some time.
If you have a meeting at ten o'clock, a meeting
at twelve o'clock, and then a meeting at two o'clock,
the only slot where you could put a ninety minute

(02:05):
task in the day would be by showing up early,
or by starting it after three pm, when most people
are not really angling to start much new If all
your meetings are consolidated, though, then you have multiple places
you could start the ninety minute task that at least
somewhat raises the chances of it getting done now. Obviously,

(02:29):
we don't always get to control when meetings happen. You
are trying to bring people together, and those people have
their own schedules and their own preferences, but you might
be able to exert some control over this. For instance,
if you see an upcoming day that looks pretty light

(02:49):
and has a big open chunk of time, you might
be able to put a block over this open time,
put some project name on it, and then any addition
meetings will naturally get consolidated with the ones you have.
If someone is scheduling meetings for you, you can tell
this person that you prefer to consolidate and leave bigger

(03:11):
blocks of time open. You can also do a calendar triage.
When you are planning out your week or any given day,
look at the hard landscape, as David Allen calls time
specific appointments. If you have meetings at one in three
and then a thirty minute meeting with someone you work
closely with at let's say ten in the morning, reach

(03:33):
out to that person. Maybe you can handle it with
a phone call right then and get it off your calendar,
or maybe the person might be able to move the
meeting till later in the day or do it later
in the week. But do your best to try to
consolidate your meetings because that single thirty minute meeting is
going to undermine your ability to focus deeply for the

(03:56):
entire morning. If that meeting is about your mos most
important business issue, that is fine, but is it. Focus
and attention are valuable things in their own right. You
don't want them to be chopped up if there is
no good reason. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks

(04:19):
for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.

(04:48):
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