Mike Clark’s Business Bites: Putting white space in your calendar increases productivity

Are your unrealistic expectations the reason why you often run late? Try setting aside realistic amounts of time in your calendar.

OPINION:

I have long been fascinated and absorbed with optimising my time. It is a skill that can make an incredible impact on both your personal and professional lives. My pursuit is not about squeezing more into less time, but rather ensuring I am enjoying the time I have.

It is this pursuit that helped me stumble upon a simple strategy that has made one of the largest and most significant differences. I am prone to something I call the Superman Syndrome - the belief that I can (should be able to) complete a lot more in a day than is humanly possible. This rears its ugly head in multiple ways.

One is planning report writing to be done in 20 minutes rather than one hour (because once I managed it in 20 minutes and figured that should now be the gold standard). It has led to me only scheduling the minimum amount of travel time between appointments - not allowing for any meeting to run overtime (I now know this to be insanity for a ‘people person’ who loves to connect) and expecting the road to be clear with green lights the whole way (school traffic is the ultimate reality check in this regard).

Arriving at a client meeting 20 minutes late one day forced me to accept that something needed to change. I identified my unrealistic expectations as the culprit, and started to plan with realistic amounts of time in my calendar. This helped a lot. I use Google Calendar and have it colour-coded for meetings, travel, admin tasks, course writing, and training. This worked well, but was easily derailed by the unexpected.

Procrastination and interruptions are regularly cited as being the top cause of delays and drops in productivity. Companies going to four-day weeks without losing output and maintaining their productivity regularly highlight how people are more focused and less prone to interrupting others or entertaining interruptions.

Focus inside of blocked time remains my number one tip for high productivity. The challenge I needed to overcome extended beyond this focus time.

Using a 15-minute time tracker for two weeks quickly highlighted the challenge, putting a spotlight on the obvious. The problem was not the working time, but rather the transition time. The space between one task and another.

Two things immediately became clear. Not having a clear plan for the day would mean that once a task was finished, I would waste time and energy deciding what to do next. The easy fix for that was to plan the day and week ahead. The second observation became an epiphany moment that has made the single greatest difference since discovering the power of focus in block time - the power of white space.

The concept is simple and, in hindsight, logical. Put white space between activities. This allows for meetings and tasks that run over time. It allows for refreshment breaks. It removes the pressure and rush from a day.

This factor alone increased productivity. I had clear space to think. I was not ending meetings thinking of the next thing I was rushing to. It allowed time for team members to ask questions, and get quick answers and feedback.

When you look at your calendar, and your team’s - could you do with having some white space?

• Mike Clark is director and lead trainer and facilitator at Think Right business training company.