Life Tool: Turning “Skipping Meetings” into “Working Wednesday”
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“…if it requires creativity, deep thinking, or making, I should dedicate long stretches of time.”
Paul Graham said about schedules:
“There are two types of schedule, which I’ll call the manager’s schedule and the maker’s schedule. The manager’s schedule is for bosses. It’s embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals…
…But there’s another way of using time that’s common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started.”
Lots of people try to save money by spending throughout the month and putting whatever is left over into a savings account. Turns out, this is a horrible idea. It’s much more effective to “pay yourself first,” to put money into savings first and then spend only what is left over.
I apply this same principle to my calendar. If it’s important, I should dedicate time it do it. And if it requires creativity, deep thinking, or making, I should dedicate long stretches of time. That is, I pay myself first by scheduling in the things that matter, and force everything else to fit into whatever is left over.
There are lots of ways to execute on this concept — scheduling “heads down” time or working from home to avoid distraction, just to name two.
The tactic I use is to block off my entire Wednesday and avoid scheduling meetings on that day. At times, I have asked my team to do the same. When no one has meetings, brainstorming sessions do not need to fit into artificially short blocks of time. When you get a good idea, you can spend time writing it down and fleshing it out. And the team can actually get its creative work done.
By blocking off the full day, colleagues looking at my calendar in Outlook will naturally schedule meetings on other days. This is especially important because the meetings others schedule are inevitably more important to them than they are to me. (If they were high-priority to me, I would have proactively scheduled them myself.)
Ironically, Working Wednesday was especially helpful when my kid was born. Since caring for a newborn is super stressful and tiring, I wanted to give my wife a 1-day break during the work week, allowing her to relax, see friends, take meetings, exercise — basically everything that’s hard to do when you’re watching a newborn.
When I told others about my plan, some were skeptical that it would be easy to take off just one day per week. But because I had been doing Working Wednesdays, I already knew that you could have a day without meetings and not disrupt the rest of my work.
It’s also gives a dose of humility for people to say, “oh, you won’t be there on Wednesday? That’s OK, we don’t really need you.”
The reason it works out: when others do need you, they’ll just schedule the meeting on another day.
Getting Started
The main action step for your Working Wednesday — or whatever day you choose — is this: just schedule it.
Of course, actually implementing it faithfully and holding your time is more difficult. Some tips that may make it easier.
- Get your boss on board. If you’re like me, most of your meetings come from superiors. Hence, if you can get your boss not to schedule meetings on your work day, you’ll mostly be fine. When I first suggested a team-wide pilot of Working Wednesday, my boss’s reaction: “I’m in—this coincides with my desire to have ‘Maker Time’ on Wednesday mornings — so in theory I already have half of the day set for myself.” Or put another way: “I need this too.”
- Get others involved. If you launch with your whole team, it becomes a lot easier to get the value—working deeply with others—and a lot easier to say “no” to partner teams (“sorry, we’re all busy”).
- Just ask to move meetings. You’d be amazed how many meetings are scheduled with arbitrary timing. There’s often no reason they need to be held today rather than tomorrow.
- Just say “no.” The world will go on if you miss a meeting. And if you use the time productively, you’ll win in the end.
Finally, in case you want examples of how to pitch this idea, I’ve pasted some emails below.
Launching with a team of peers
Team (cc’ing partners),
We’re kicking off a pilot of Working Wednesdays — or, put in a negative frame: No-Meeting Wednesdays. The goal: by committing to avoid scheduling/accepting meetings on that day, we’ll be able to more organically get things done and collaborate. Details below.
What’s out:
Cramming brainstorming or problem solving into 30-minute chunks (that start 5 minutes late)
Waiting to get things done because calendars don’t align
Accepting meeting invitations because there’s a spot open in my calendar
What’s in:
Focusing on a task for however long it takes
Co-creating
“Why don’t you just stop by my desk on Wednesday? I should be around.”
“Can we schedule that for another day?”
Overall, this should support the overall desire to practice agile, harness the benefits of co-location, and help us work a little more like a start up.
Timing:
We’ll start the week after next…. The pilot will last through the end of the April, and we’ll reassess thereafter. Test and learn.
Some simple requests:
Avoid scheduling meetings on Wednesdays
Avoid accepting meetings
Take a look at your calendar and try to move meetings from future Wednesdays, if possible
In reality, it’ll be hard to remove 100% of your obligations, but if 80% of us clear up 80% of our schedule, we should be able to get most of the impact.
Team, you’ll see calendar invitations from me in a second. Feel free to decline if you don’t want the roadblock on your calendar (or simply accept and mark the time as “Free”). Partners, please ask if you’d like to be included on those invitations.
Some FAQs
What about meetings scheduled by others?
Politely, say, “no.” Or delegate to Onkar.
What about working sessions?
Actually, these are a good use of time. By not having other meetings on our schedules, it should help with deep thinking and making uninterrupted progress.
Stand ups?
If short, OK
Update meetings?
Not on the agenda, literally
This will probably ruin [the Director’s] and [the VP’s] schedule…
Yes, and this is why Director+ jobs are overrated. But they’ll both try to create flexible time on those days to join in on the fun when they can.
Let me know if you have any additional questions or ideas on how best to leverage the time.
Thanks,
Charles
Launching with your own team
Explaining to your subordinates is easier since, well, you’re the boss. Below is an email explaining to my new team why my calendar looked so full.
Wednesday is always blocked on my calendar. The goal is to enable long stretches of time for creative thinking, deep problem solving, brainstorming, writing — basically, any mental process that’s hard to do without uninterrupted time. Hence, I’ll decline any meeting on Wednesday whose agenda is update, review, or coordinate. Will only accept if we’re going to do actual work. I’ll also actively work to prevent any recurring meetings from above and from other teams from being scheduled on Wednesdays.
The other reason for Working Wednesdays is that it’s easier for the team as a whole to do those deep-thinking activities when their schedules are coordinated. For example, we can brainstorm, synthesize, AND decide in one shot rather than “we’ll regroup later…oh, looks like everyone’s not free for 3 more days.” Hence, I will provide air cover for anyone who wants to join this practice.
I want to hear your thoughts!
This is a “living post,” in that I’d like your help to add to make it more valuable. What have you tried that is similar? Have any stories about the impact of using a tool like this? Please share!
See All of the Tools for other posts like this.
