Four ways to create insights by protecting your calendar from coronavirus swirl
Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash
If you’re an executive, your calendar is probably a disaster right now. Video and phone calls stacked from dusk to dawn. Constant new requests. Double- and triple-bookings. No time to take a deep breath, let alone reflect and prioritize.
Nearly all the leaders I coach are facing unprecedented demands on their time, as their companies grapple with the economic, social, and employee-wellness implications of the COVID-19 crisis. There’s a lot of suffering, and few existing playbooks to guide our thinking. This has spun everyone up into “busy” mode. “There’s a fine line between urgency and panic,” one corporate VP told me. “We’ve crossed into panic.”
Many leaders think the answers to these extraordinary business challenges will emerge from meetings. The truth is, crammed schedules block your best thinking and sap your energy.
Now, when it feels most difficult, is precisely when you most need to create white space on your calendar, then fiercely defend it.
White space opens your creativity and rejuvenates you for the important work at hand.
Here’s why white space is so important for leaders, and how you can create it for yourself and your teams.
"When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.” — Eckhardt Tolle
Distraction masquerading as work
Swirl, churn, wheel-spinning… It’s all normal and understandable. These are frightening times. Company leaders are facing genuinely critical decisions and urgent tasks. They have employees and customers to support. Supply chains to revamp. Business models to pivot. And, in some cases, employees to lay off or furlough.
The survival-oriented parts of our brains see all this chaos and tell us to act busy. You’ll lose your job, too, if you don’t prove your worth! So we schedule more meetings, create more slide decks, send more emails and Slack messages. See, everyone, I’m doing something!
Or maybe we’re sitting with heavy emotions we don’t want to face. Fear. Loneliness. Guilt that we still have a job and good health. Frustration that we can't control any of this. Rather than feel the pain of these emotions and allow them to flow through, we throw ourselves into our work.
Or we buy into the story that if we’re not doing something, we’re being selfish. For high-achieving leaders especially, creating time to think and rest triggers shame. We worry that we’re sending the message that we don’t care.
Problem is, the more we spin ourselves up, the more agitated we grow.
The more agitated we grow, the more unnecessary work tasks we create.
The more unnecessary work tasks we create, the more we distract ourselves and our colleagues.
We’re like drowning people, pulling those near us underwater.
Clarity comes in stillness
Stop splashing. Stop grasping. Instead, float for a bit.
Be still during this chaos. Let your mind and body rest.
Go for a walk with your family. Take a run. Journal. Sit outdoors and feel the sun on your skin.
The white space between meetings gives our mind the space to process all the information it's taking in.
It allows us to see things we otherwise would miss.
It invites forward our creativity.
It allows us to reconnect with what we stand for and the impact we want to make on the world.
And it energizes us so we don’t burn out.
“Stillness is not an excuse to withdraw from the affairs of the world. Quite the opposite—it’s a tool to let you do more good for more people.” — Ryan Holiday
Four ways to protect yourself, and your teams, from calendar overload
1. Create white space on your calendar
Block time on your calendar, free of distractions, then guard it religiously. You might use it to sit in a comfortable chair and just think. Or go for a walk with your family. Exercise. Journal about your top work and personal priorities, and the challenges you’re facing in each (Andrew Blotky offers some smart ideas about journaling during the COVID-19 crisis). Read a book. Or capture the top 5 leadership lessons you’re learning during the coronavirus crisis.
To overcome those inner voices that tell us we’re being selfish, do this:
Write down three ways you will benefit from giving yourself time to think and recharge. What will feel different? What gifts will you discover in that stillness?
Write down three ways others will benefit when you create white space for yourself. What kind of energy will you bring to your interactions? How will you be a better leader, spouse, or parent?
Go onto your calendar and block at least one hour-long chunk per day when you won’t take any meetings. Use a different color so it stands out. Give the calendar entry a title that evokes its purpose: "Leadership Time," "Recharge and Reflect," "Thinking Time," or whatever works for you. On my calendar, I call it “White Space Time,” and each entry is in red.
Prepare to defend that time. Blocking it on your calendar will feel good. But I promise, your resolve will be tested the first time someone tries to schedule over it. You will want to explain yourself, to stammer out a response about taking time for yourself. Don’t. You don't owe anyone any explanation. You can simply say, “I’m not available then. Can we reschedule?"
2. Take advantage of unscheduled moments
In addition to scheduling white-space time, you can also discover it. While you’re waiting for your coffee to brew, or if a work call ends early, don’t pick up your phone. Instead, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the feeling of air coming in and out of your lungs, your feet on the floor. Look at the window and see what nature is reminding you about the importance of stillness. Think back to a time when you felt in the zone, and allow yourself to feel those sensations of calm, flow, energy. Imagine all the molecules in your body slowing down, vibrating at a slower speed, as your nervous system settles.
3. Craft agreements about meetings
Start conversations with your teams about how you want to be right now. Calm or frenzied? Creative or reactive? Intentional or scattered? Dedicated or panicked? Together, make a list of characteristics you want to embody as a team in this moment, so you can stay true to your values. Then hold each other accountable. When someone is creating unnecessary swirl, tell them — and invite them to do the same with you. If it seems like someone is spinning out of control, ask how they’re feeling. What emotion is driving their incessant need to do?
Talk about the benefits of white-space time. Model it for your team, and invite them to tell you what difference they notice. Align your schedules by experimenting with all taking white-space time during the same window.
4. Be ruthless with calendar invitations
Before you send or accept a calendar invitation, pause for a moment. Take three deep breaths. Ask yourself, is this meeting necessary? Is there a clear agenda? Is my presence really necessary? Can we shorten the time and/or the number of people involved? Can we resolve this by email instead? Now do the same for standing meetings you’ve already accepted.
Recommit to best-practices for running meetings, especially killing ones that don’t add value and improving ones that do. This Harvard Business Review article, Why Your Meetings Stink and What to Do About It, offers a good refresher.
Panic is natural these days. Just don’t let yourself get dragged into it. Because your best ideas and strongest energy are found in the white spaces.