Protect your best hours

Get more done by spending your best hours in your zone of genius

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to protect your best hours. If you have
a time of day when you are most productive or

(00:23):
creative or focused, you don't want to give that time
away If you don't have to structure your schedule mindfully,
and you may find yourself getting a lot more done.
So if you have ever monitored your energy during the day,
you know that not all hours are created equal. Around

(00:44):
eight am, in that first cup of coffee, people often
feel like they can conquer the world. Come two pm,
energy is waning and there is no more conquering the world.
Something that felt doable at eight am now feels like
it is taking forever as you keep getting distracted. Many

(01:05):
people then get a burst of energy around quitting time,
as they need to finish things to get out the door,
though it is probably not quite as big as that
initial morning zip. This pattern isn't universal. Some people are
most productive from say four to seven pm, or from
midnight to two am, or maybe from four am to

(01:26):
six am, but most people aren't extreme, and the idea
of focused mornings more or less during business hours and
less focused afternoons is pretty much the norm for adults.
This also means that for most people, the opportunity cost
of doing something outside your zone of genius is much

(01:49):
lower in the afternoon than in the morning, and yet
studying time. I am amazed how many people don't think
about this when setting up their schedules. Sometimes you don't
really have a choice. If you're a manager two levels
up wants to meet you at nine a m. Well,
you should probably do it. But if you are setting

(02:11):
a team meeting with a group of people you see
frequently and who you know are mostly still doing their jobs,
why would you put this at nine am? This is
time people could be executing on their tasks. Unless a
meeting is really requiring everyone's best and most creative selves,

(02:32):
it is a waste to put it during most people's
most productive hours. You can all tell everyone what you
are doing and that you are still doing your job
at two pm. I mean, unless you work with all
night owls, but if so, you probably know that. If
you want to be more productive at work this year,

(02:53):
one of the best things you can do is figure
out when you are at your best, and then as
much as possible devote these hours to the work that
truly moves things forward. And I know this is easier
said than done, but here's the thing. It doesn't have
to be all or nothing. You might start by seeing

(03:15):
if you can protect some focused hours when people are
less likely to request meetings if you do happen to
get more done in the mornings like many of us,
maybe you can try to put your first meetings at
nine thirty AM or later and work from eight to
nine thirty or so on your chosen projects, and then

(03:35):
decide you'll make up the time by taking a real
lunch or leaving a little earlier in the afternoon if
you might otherwise have been starting work at nine or else.
You might try to protect late morning time. Sometimes people
start thinking of lunch around eleven or eleven thirty and
won't schedule meetings over whatever they consider that lunchtime window.

(03:57):
If you know that you are usually on fire between
eleven am and noon, try acting like that is lunch
and protect it, and then actually take a lunch at
twelve thirty or one. You might be able to do
this more days than you think. Of course, if you
are going to protect this time, it is good to

(04:17):
know what you intend to do with it. One reason
to do a regular weekly planning session is that you
can then identify what tasks might move you forward towards
your professional goals in any given week. Then you can
look at your schedule and identify some open, high productivity times,
or you might block these things. Maybe you won't get

(04:39):
every day, but if you need two good sessions and
you block three, most likely you will get two. One
might get taken away from you, but hey, you've still
got too and you can start feeling some forward momentum. Personally,
I try to do this by limiting meetings or interviews

(05:00):
or anything like that in the mornings. If there's no
other good time, or it's a truly awesome opportunity, I
will do it. I don't want to be what slows
everything else down. But I have noticed that many times
people ask what time is good for you? If so,
you could offer three times at work for you and
protect your best most productive hours for focus things. If

(05:25):
you work in one of those offices where people can
see your calendar and just grab whatever they want off
of it, well you still might be able to play
within these rules. You can block some of your most
productive hours for meetings with a particular colleague who will
then become your accountability partner. These aren't actually meetings. They

(05:46):
are the two of you checking in to say what
you're going to get done during these peak productivity times,
and then afterwards saying that you've done it. If the
time on your calendar is taken up by a meeting,
then it generally won't be available for other things unless
people make a plausible claim that it is an emergency,

(06:06):
and then that is fine. You are just making it
marginally more likely that you use your best hours for
what your best hours are best suited for. In the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.

(06:36):
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. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

(06:58):
listen to your favorite shows. St