A few months ago I added a single event to my calendar that reoccurs each Friday. The event spans from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM – my normal work hours – and simply says “Focus time: Ask before booking : )“.
Taking the time to shut out distractions and focus on your most important tasks is a professional super power. Whereas every other day of my week is broken up by meetings, Fridays are dedicated to focused work. After my normal startup routine, I set my status on Slack, close the app, and go focus on the most important tasks on my radar.
Ever since I made this change a few months ago, Fridays have become my favorite and most productive day of the week.
I do sometimes have meetings on Fridays. This event is set to public visibility. So if someone really needs to meet with me they can see based on the name of this event that a meeting is a possibility, they just need to reach out and ask before booking time on my calendar. If that happens, that’s ok. I’m happy to take a meeting on a Friday if that’s when it needs to happen. However, that rarely happens. For the most part, people get it, meetings get booked for another day, and my Fridays remain meeting-free and highly productive.
I like this concept a lot.