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You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Hey, listeners. We know you're all about making the most of your time. So why not turn your lunch break into a growth break with Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman. Every Tuesday, Ken sits down with top experts to explore the real questions that help you thrive at work and in life. Questions like, what are the 10 best foods for your memory? Or how can you ask for the raise you want and actually get it?
If you love thoughtful advice and smart strategies, check out Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is to consolidate your time-specific meetings or appointments. The more you can do this, the more open space you can have in the rest of your life.
which can allow you to focus more deeply on other things. So here's a question. Let's say you were trying to place three hour-long meetings into a workday. You get to pick the times. Where would you choose to put them? So I would probably try to put them at 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, and 4 o'clock. If I was trying to build in a little space in case one ran over, I might try to do 1.30, 2.30, and 4 o'clock.
But as much as possible, I would try to put the meetings close together, and I would try to put them later in the day. That would leave the entire morning open for working on projects that couldn't be neatly chopped up into hour-long blocks. The reason I'd put the meetings in the afternoon is that I tend to have a little less energy in the afternoon. But most people do go to scheduled meetings, regardless of how they feel.
Most of us have a harder time doing more speculative, creative, or nebulous things when we are flagging. But even if you put all the meetings in the morning, I would still recommend putting them all together. That's because anything time-specific on a calendar tends to make people stop what they are doing at least a few minutes before, and then it takes time to get back into focused work afterwards. That can be a problem if you have a bigger task on your to-do list that is going to require some time.
If you have a meeting at 10 o'clock, a meeting at 12 o'clock, and then a meeting at 2 o'clock, the only slot where you could put a 90-minute task in the day would be by showing up early or by starting it after 3 p.m., when most people are not really angling to start much new. If all your meetings are consolidated, though, then you have multiple places you could start the 90-minute task. That at least somewhat raises the chances of it getting done.
Now, obviously, we don't always get to control when meetings happen. You are trying to bring people together, and those people have their own schedules and their own preferences. But you might be able to exert some control over this. For instance, if you see an upcoming day that looks pretty light and has a big open chunk of time, you might be able to put a block over this open time, put some project name on it,
and then any additional meetings will naturally get consolidated with the ones you have. If someone is scheduling meetings for you, you can tell this person that you prefer to consolidate and leave bigger blocks of time open. You can also do a calendar triage. When you are planning out your week or any given day, look at the hard landscape, as David Allen calls time-specific appointments. If you have meetings at 1 and 3 o'clock,
and then a 30-minute meeting with someone you work closely with at, let's say, 10 in the morning, reach out to that person. Maybe you can handle it with a phone call right then and get it off your calendar. Or maybe the person might be able to move the meeting to later in the day or do it later in the week. But do your best to try to consolidate your meetings because that single 30-minute meeting is going to undermine your ability to focus deeply for the entire morning.
If that meeting is about your most important business issue, that is fine. But is it? Focus and attention are valuable things in their own right. You don't want them to be chopped up if there is no good reason. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening. And here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at laura at lauravandercam.com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, listeners. We know you're all about making the most of your time. So why not turn your lunch break into a growth break with Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman.
Every Tuesday, Ken sits down with top experts to explore the real questions that help you thrive at work and in life. Questions like, what are the 10 best foods for your memory? Or how can you ask for the raise you want and actually get it? If you love thoughtful advice and smart strategies, check out Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman, wherever you get your podcasts.
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