To help win back more of your #168hours for important work in 2021, try these tricks heading into the new year:
Stack meetings back-to-back whenever possible. This will protect windows of productivity. New research from Ohio State University shows that you’re 22% less productive if you know you have a meeting coming up within the next two hours. Your calendar should look less like polka dots and more like Tetris next year.
Schedule meetings with yourself each week next year for the important proactive work that needs to get done. Label them in a way that communicates to others the value of this time. We want others to know that they should not try to book something over it. Try: "Proactive Mission Critical Work" or "Customer Focused Work"or "Get Ahead on Key Goals."
Block time for email. Best to chunk up email time into some combination of morning, lunch, and end of the day. Then, don't sit in your inbox all day. Use the time blocked and challenge yourself to clear out your inbox within the allotted time.
We share the details behind these strategies and much more in the Not Doing List.
