40 Intentional Minutes

The most important 40 minutes of my work day isn’t actually time spent doing the work itself.?

It’s being intentional about where I place my focus over the 450+ working minutes that follow.

I’m a big believer in intensely managing my calendar, but it took me a good 10+ years to realize that doing so was even an option. Like so many others, I took the bait on relinquishing full control of my time. Hook, line, and sinker.

The key insight changed things for me was this:?

A meeting from someone else is a request for YOUR time to advance THEIR to-do list.?

The unlock for me was realizing that I should be reserving time with MYSELF to advance MY own to-do list, and to in turn negotiate the “when” of meetings to help me accomplish things that I know I need to get done.

(And, to be clear, there’s nothing wrong or malicious about people setting up meetings; I’m not one to tilt at the windmills of trying to abolish all meetings.)

So, back to the 40 intentional minutes — here’s how I do it:

I’m writing this on a Wednesday.

I have the last 20 minutes of each work day blocked off as “Prep tomorrow”. During these 20 minutes, I block off ALL remaining non-reserved time I have left on Thursday in 30 and 60 minute increments, and I block off HALF of the non-reserved time I have left on Friday, leaving some time showing as “available” for others to see.

Why block off in 30 to 60 minute increments? Two reasons:

1. I (and I suspect most people) have a hard time focusing on a given task for more than 60 minutes.
2. When most people see a time block longer than that they assume it’s “not a real meeting” and they’ll try to schedule something on top of it.

I’ll use my “Prep tomorrow” time this afternoon to look at a combination of (a) the things on my to-do list (I love Asana, more on that later) that are both urgent and important, and (b) meetings the next day that require prep, and I update the titles of each of those 30- and 60-minute time blocks on Thursday with the thing I intend to do during each time block.

That’s the first half of the 40 intentional minutes, which is the last part of Wednesday.

The second 20 minutes is the first thing I do on Thursday, which I have blocked off each day as “Triage inbox & finalize today.”? During this time I review my inbox and do two things:

1. Add new tasks to Asana that may have came in off-hours, and
2. Adjust the order of things I’m going to do today if needed

I’m not going to respond to emails in that 20 minute window; I’ve “booked time with myself” for later in the morning to do that. This 20-minute window is all about locking in my plan for the day.

And then I get to work, following the schedule that my calendar tells me to work on.

“What happens if something urgent comes up?”?

That’s fine, things happen.?

If someone needs to meet with me today, they’ll pull up my calendar and see I’m fully booked today (Thursday). They’ll then either book some of the free time that’s still showing on Friday (if it’s not actually today-urgent), or slack me to ask for time today if it is today-urgent, at which point I’ll usually give up one of my “work blocks” if the meeting really does have to be today.?

Importantly, I keep my calendar set to “See only free/busy, hide details” for almost everyone so people can’t see when I’m in work blocks vs. actual meetings. This isn’t about deceiving anyone. It’s about fiercely protecting my time so I can focus on the things that I know are important given my role and priorities.

The thing that I’ve found to be so helpful about this system is that it keeps me in control of my time during each day.

I’ll happily flex things around tomorrow, the next day, or next week. But I’m no longer in a position where people (inadvertently or otherwise) blow up my day.

When someone pulls up another person’s calendar to book a meeting and they see a bunch of free time, it’s all too easy for the scheduler to think “Great, this person doesn’t have anything going on today, I’ll optimize this meeting’s timing for my own needs” (again, usually not maliciously, it’s just human nature).?

But that’s hardly ever the case — the meeting invite receiver is almost certainly busy with plenty of things to do, even if it isn’t showing up as reserved time on the calendar

What I’ve also found to be so helpful about this system is that it helps me maintain downward pressure on the number of decisions I have to make in a day. I go through one decision-making process at the beginning of each day for what I’m going to do that day, and then I do the work. Without that intentionality, it’s too easy to get caught throughout the day debating what to do next, at the expense of that decision-making time and effort leaking away.

I’ve been using this system for a few years; it works great for me. That doesn’t mean it will be perfect for everyone. And that’s ok.

My main hope here is that others will begin to bring more intentionality and agency to their working hours. For me, it’s made all aspects of my life better.