5 Things You Should Always Block Time For In Your Calendar
A few essential items from a minimalist’s weekly schedule
If there’s one thing I’m bad about letting slip through the cracks, it’s the valuable resource that is my calendar. My close friends and I go on and on about the invincibility of the GoogleCalendar and how much of a tool it can be in your toolbox for staying on task and getting meaningful things done. But it’s just as easy to forget what you want to do, to never add things in the first place, or to not know what should be prioritized in your schedule.
I’ve gone through some of my best weeks as a creator, writer, and student, and compiled a few items that I think every person should include in their weekly calendar spread, whatever that looks like for you.
“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.” — Charles Richards
Some of these things are general things that are common knowledge, the first is a suggestion from a book that I read and loved, and some are in part my own invention. These aren’t all absolutely necessary, nor is this an exhaustive list of everything that you should make time for, but they’re certainly a great starting point in setting you up for an incredible week.
#1: Highlight time
This recommendation for time well spent comes from one of my favorite books, which is appropriately titled Make Time. It’s written by two former tech workers, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, and it is simply incredible. The book includes a massive list of ways to make the most of your life and make living go a bit more smoothly. But my favorite suggestion that they offer up is that of “highlight time.”
“One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.“ — Malcolm S. Forbes
Highlight time is the time of the day when you sit down and you focus on the one big thing you wanted to get done that day. It reminds me a lot of the concept in Intelligent Change’s Productivity Planner, where they provide a space for one task that, if you got just that done, you would be satisfied. It’s the same with the highlight. It gets all of your energy, all of your focus, and is powerful enough of a job that it would be perfectly fine if that’s all that you could do.
“Make Time is a framework for choosing what you want to focus on, building the energy to do it, and breaking the default cycle so that you can start being more intentional about the way you live your life. Even if you don’t completely control your own schedule — and few of us do — you absolutely can control your attention.”― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day
Every day, in your calendar, you should have space for this. Whether you call it “highlight time” or something else, lay out time for you to do the thing that you most want to do. Don’t put it off. Get it done, be proud, and check it off the list. It’ll probably be the highlight of your day.
#2: Reset time each week
I’m a pretty extroverted person. You can find me constantly putting off work, running late to things, and getting overwhelmingly excited on occasion at the prospect of seeing people. But this, combined with my ADHD, can oftentimes get me into trouble. In my college schedule of life, if I spend all of my time with people, outside of the house, my life nose dives into chaos relatively quickly.
“In this game, everyone needs a break to refuel, recharge, and jump back in full throttle.” ― Helen Edwards
This is why, every week, sometimes twice a week, I have to schedule a reset. This is when I assess my home for what I need to buy, order my groceries, make sure there isn’t anything lost in my planner, wash my clothes, clean the kitchen, etc. Essentially, anything that I’ve been ignoring gets done in this time. This is what Jess Connolly in her book You Are The Girl For The Job calls her “lady of the house day”, a term I often use for my own reset day.
It’s the ultimate proactive habit and allows you to have peace of mind for the next few days about the state of your home and belongings. It truly reminds me that I am nothing without my home base and that it’s okay to spend a little bit of time on the calendar and schedule each week to take care of it.
#3: Miniature vacation time
Everyone needs breaks. Yes, that includes you. Even the busiest and stressed-out people need breaks. Heck, maybe they need them more than other people. One thing that I’ve found is essential to include in my calendar is time for these smaller vacations. Even if it’s simply what Gina suggests in the quote below, simply building a tree house and climbing up in it for a little while.
“Is there a place you can go to break away for a little while? If you haven’t yet built your tree house, it’s never too late to start.” ― Gina Greenlee
Whether that looks like going to the beach for the weekend with your friends or family, spending the afternoon at a theme park, or any other combination of wild and fun activities that don’t involve work for a somewhat short period of time, it’s worth it. Research shows that vacations, even small ones, improve efficacy in the workplace. I personally found “The Data-Driven Case for Vacation”, an article from the Harvard Business Review, incredibly insightful and interesting as far as this topic is concerned.
The most interesting finding that they lay out is that people who took more advantage of their vacation days actually ended up receiving more raises — I guess their work ended up being better after all after stepping away for a little while.
Don’t let yourself get so busy and worked up about things that you never take a break. The word vacation comes from the Latin word, vacare, to be unoccupied. It’s the same one we get the word “vacate” from. To go on a true vacation means to leave your workspace unoccupied, and your projects vacated for the time being. This doesn’t mean you’re being neglectful or lazy, it means that you know how to work best — and that the research proves vacations are essential for being the best at what you do.
For projects, stepping away on a vacation of some size lets you get a fresh perspective and rise up out of the weeds a little bit. For employees of larger companies and organizations, vacations help them get a break and avoid burnout. This is important — and not something to be taken lightly. And if the Harvard Business Review says that you should take a vacation, I’m saying it too.
#4: Time for batched tasks
I try and put together all of my tasks around finances, cleaning certain things, organizing, etc. This not only gives you peace of mind about having time to do them, but it helps you remember to streamline those things when the time comes. I try and batch as many things as I can. Communication tasks might go one place, cleaning another, and then I’ll put all of my reading together.
“Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well.” ― Louisa May Alcott
So far in this semester of college, this block of time for task completion has been really helpful. For many of my classes this semester I have heavy amounts of reading. Instead of splitting up my work by class as I might usually do while sitting down to work and study, know I split it up based on the type of the assignment. That way, in my calendar, say, this afternoon, I can simply put “read all articles”. I read that to mean getting all of my reading assignments done.
This is much easier to do in a sequence instead of splitting things up, giving me a better recollection of what I’m reading overall, allowing for me to take better notes, and get through it much quicker and with more streamlined motivation. Whatever it is, putting it together tends to be a lot more useful and I would highly recommend it.
#5: Intake time
This is the time that is all about learning, but also about exposing yourself to new information. For some people, this might look like reading, but it doesn’t have to. This can be looking at a certain kind of news, scrolling through social media with an open mind, or watching a new show or an interesting film. Whatever you do, this scheduled “intake time” is about intaking information and new ideas to help you deepen and richen your intellectual life and help you to see the world with a new perspective.
“For the best return on your money, pour your purse into your head.”― Benjamin Franklin
For me, this might mean watching a new YouTuber, watching some TikToks in a specific thread that I’m interested in learning more about, listening to new songs, or watching a movie that’s in a genre I don’t usually watch, or watching a new TV show. All of these things broaden my horizons, and even if I’m not learning something incredibly educational, they’re showing me more parts of the world and getting my wheels turning on some new ideas and trains of thought.
At the end of the day, you control your time and how it’s spent. It’s your responsibility to spend it as wisely as possible and to make the most of the minutes, hours, and days that you have. And it all starts with knowing how you want to spend it. I hope these tips have been helpful for you in planning your next week, being proactive and deciding what you want to spend time on, and keeping your life and sanity together while you conquer your biggest and greatest projects. Good luck!
