Friday Forward - Protected Time (#538)
Only you own the responsibility of guarding your time for your priorities
Last week, a longtime Friday Forward reader sent me a link to an article with a note: “You will like this.”
She was right. In fact, I know the author well.
His name is Dave Kerpen. He’s a serial entrepreneur who has founded seven companies, and he’s also an author and speaker. By any definition, he is busy. And yet, every weekday at 3 p.m., you can find him sitting in the pickup line outside his son Seth’s elementary school in Port Washington, New York.
Seth is in fifth grade, the final year before he starts riding the bus to and from school. Dave knows his pickup time with Seth is running out, so he schedules accordingly. He blocks off 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. every school day to pick up his son, with no exceptions.
No call, meeting or business fire drill takes precedence. Every school day, those two hours are untouchable in his calendar.
As Dave revealed in the piece, this rule makes him a better CEO, not just a better dad. The 2 p.m. cutoff, he wrote, has led him to eliminate 80 percent of the meetings he used to take and only schedule the remaining 20 percent that he deems important. As he put it, “The pickup line gave me the discipline to say no that all the productivity books in the world couldn’t.”
That line stayed with me, because I have used a few similar rules that helped my own schedule.
The first rule started when my kids were younger and I was traveling constantly. I made a non-negotiable promise to always be home for each of my kids’ birthdays. Occasionally, this meant turning down lucrative speaking engagements on those days. But the rule was the rule, and over time, it stopped feeling like a sacrifice and started feeling like a cornerstone.
A second practice came from my observation that no one ever bothered me when I was on an airplane, nor was there ever an emergency that couldn’t wait until I landed. So, I started blocking off portions of my calendar for thinking, writing, or rest, and I labeled them “Airplane Time.” It sounded silly, but it worked. People learned not to try to book things during “Airplane Time” even if I was at my desk, not in the air.
If all of your hours are for sale, there will always be buyers. Meetings especially seem to find their way into any available open spaces. This is why I avoid tools that allow others to book time on my calendar. If you do use these tools, I recommend putting strict limitations on which hours can be booked and take advantage of time blocking.
No matter how busy your schedule is, think about what time you want to protect and create a short list of non-negotiables you set in advance and stick to. School pickup at 3 p.m. Every birthday at home. The Friday night dinner. The Saturday morning run. Decide what you care about most and make that time unbookable before people take it for themselves.
Dave’s example shows this kind of constraint often makes people more productive, not less. Because he cannot take a meeting between 2 and 4 p.m., he doesn’t book meetings that just don’t need to happen.
The hardest part about protecting your time is that no one else will do it for you. Most of the people sending you invitations want to use your time for their priorities. The responsibility for guarding your time for your priorities therefore rests with you.
Dave closed his piece with a line worth sitting with: the day you miss for a meeting is a day you do not get back. He went on, “If you’re a founder and you’re routinely missing pickup, dinner, the school concert, the soccer game, please stop. The business will survive. Childhood won’t wait. Pick the meeting, pick the conference, pick the trip strategically. But protect the recurring time.”
Some of the most effective leaders I know are not the ones with the fullest calendars. They are the ones who never give up their protected time.
Quote of the Week
“You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.” – Charles Buxton
PS: In case you missed it, I’m teaming up with Why Institute founder Gary Sanchez for a free webinar on how core values and purpose can ground you in tumultuous times. Learn more about the webinar and save your spot at the official event page.
Have a great weekend!
-Bob
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I wish every parent with small children reads this post. I made that mistake years ago. I missed a lot of important dates by not being present, sometimes I was physically but not mentally.
Now, I am trying my best to protect my time, my routine, my schedule.
protected time at this level is a downstream benefit of ownership