How to Manage Your Calendar: with Daniel Pink’s When
From both clients and readers, I’ve recently received lots of questions re: how to manage your calendar. The world is back in action, and people have gone from Zoom fatigue to IRL fatigue. Even though I’m a big proponent of saying no, I’m also a big proponent of going first (aka saying yes before anyone even asks you). And when you master the skill of managing your calendar and knowing when you do your best work, you make space for great opportunities. Because this is a multi-faceted skill, I thought it’d be helpful to break it into 3 posts, so you can trial and add a new layer, each week. I’m kicking off by starting from the inside-out, with science from Daniel Pink’s When.
A couple weeks ago, someone was asking me about my schedule and I responded, “Oh, I like to get a couple hours of work in, before the workday starts.” They stopped me in my tracks to poke fun. In hindsight, I see the accidental humblebrag, which wasn’t my intention at all. But here’s the reason: I’ve learned that my body and brain are wired to work better in the morning. So yes, I do like to do some pre-work, work in the early morning. Because for my body, my brain is garbage after 5P. But this doesn’t mean that you should do what I do. It means that you should know how your body and brain work so that you can optimize them.
Taken directly from the source, here’s the book’s eye-opening thesis:
Our lives present a never-ending stream of ‘when’ decisions – when to change career, deliver bad news, schedule a class, end a marriage, go for a run, or get serious about a project or a person. But most of these decisions emanate from a steamy bog of intuition and guesswork. Timing, we believe, is an art.
I will show that timing is really a science – an emerging body of multifaceted, multidisciplinary research that offers fresh insights into the human condition and useful guidance on working smarter and living better. Visit any bookstore or library, and you will see a shelf (or twelve) stacked with books about how to do various things… Think of this book as a new genre altogether – a when-to book.
This is why I do my most taxing, analytical work in the morning. Why I make customer service calls as soon as the 1-800 number opens for the day. Save my TPS reports 😉 for lunchtime. It’s how I do 9 jobs from our org chart in the working hours of 1 job (disclaimer: I certainly don’t do all these jobs perfectly! But if you’re a small business owner, you must hold multiple roles). How I take off 5 weeks per year. And how I am all there, wherever I am. It’s because I’m working with – not against – my body and brain.
So to set yourself up for your optimal timing, start with these 3 steps:
1. Take this quiz.
It’ll determine if you’re a Lark, Third Bird, or Owl; and therefore, what time of day you’re most effective at each category of work.
2. Reflect on how you currently work with and against your chronotype.
Are you a reluctant Lark, who refuses to set their alarm? Or maybe you’re the opposite: an Owl convinced that you “should” wake up at 5am because that’s what all the self-improvement gurus preach? Don’t judge yourself or your results: just take note of where and how you’re aligning, and where you’re not.
3. Commit to one tweak you’ll make this week, that’s more aligned with your chronotype.
Here’s an example from a client who just did this and learned she was a Third Bird but had been operating as an Owl.
She started setting an alarm for 6AM. She does know that her body demands 8 hours of sleep. So she then worked backwards to set a 10PM bedtime. Then even went on to say: “To get a good night of sleep, I need to stop looking at screens by 9PM.” And then she topped it all off with a goal of going to 1 morning yoga class a week.
So even though this may not seem business related, it is. How we show up for our business, affects our business. A friend recently told me, “When you run a business, your personal limitations become your business’s limitations.” So I suggest: in order to get the most of our business, we must start from the inside and work out, to first get the most from ourselves.
