Does your team have a dedicated meeting-free day? Blocking off just one day for deep work can create major benefits. Instead of jumping from meeting to meeting, you can use that time to tackle your biggest priorities. By the end of the week, instead of feeling like you were constantly interrupted, you’ll feel like you accomplished something meaningful.
Creating a meeting-free day might sound extreme, but Calendar’s Aaon Heienickle says it’s not. You just have to start small and follow some simple rules to make it work. We share his guidance in this issue of PromoPro Daily.
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Rule 1: Block it by Sunday and tell everyone it’s gone. Say, for example, you set aside Wednesday as your meeting-free day. Block it by Sunday evening and make it recurring. Then, make sure everyone knows that Wednesdays are for deep work and not for meetings. No exceptions and no negotiations.
Rule 2: Do not check email, Slack or messages until noon. This might be difficult the first week, Heienickle says, but the more often you do this, the more you realize that things will be fine. The urgent things usually aren’t urgent.
Rule 3: Choose one big project and finish something. When you block off a meeting-free day, make sure you give it direction. Know what you want to accomplish and don’t just set a vague “deep work” intention.
Rule 4: Turn on all do-not-disturb and close all apps except one. Willpower fails against distraction, Heienickle says, and architecture wins. He recommends closing Slack, email, browser tabs and everything except the one app you need.
Rule 5. Schedule a walk after 2 PM to reset your brain. A full day of uninterrupted focus is tough. Your brain may hit a wall around hour 3 or 4. Instead of breaking focus by checking Slack, Heienickle suggests taking a walk. Just 15-30 minutes away from the screen, can refresh your energy.
Rule 6. No meetings, but do a late-afternoon check-in. A meeting-free day doesn’t have to be a feedback-free day. For example, you could take 10 minutes at the end of the day to do a quick sync with 3 key people.
Rule 7. Reflect on Thursday morning on what Wednesday proved possible. Before Thursday gets busy, Heienickle suggests reflection on what you accomplished. Consider how the quality of the work differed compared to the work you complete on fragmented days.
Setting aside a day for deep work may be just the way to boost your productivity. Instead of spending every day reacting to emails and attending meetings, you’ll have a full day reserved to make real progress.
Compiled by Audrey Sellers
Source: Aaron Heienickle is an author for the Calendar blog.
