Boost productivity by eliminating your schedule
from the The Marc Andreessen Guide to Personal Productivity.
Most of the tips he outlines are standard fare, with the exception of his first tip: don’t keep a schedule. As he notes, it’s a biggie.
The idea is, by refusing to commit to meetings, appointments, or activities at any set time in any future day, you can work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time. He does concede that this tip probably wouldn’t work in a structured organziation.
I work in a divisional office for The Salvation Army. Peter Drucker called The Salvation Army, “the most effective organization in the U.S.” One of the reasons for that effectiveness was the flexibility of the organization to respond to changing demands.
On a smaller and more local scale, we maintain flexibility in many of the ways we administer The Salvation Army here in Alberta, not the least of which is our schedules.
We have three types of “calendar” events, with increasing levels of flexibility:
- Large-group events. These involve a number of people, and generally travel. These happen less frequently, but have to have fixed times, locations, etc. Once the schedule is set, it remains fixed.
- Standing committee meetings. As a non-profit organization, there are a number of regular (read weekly) committees that are involved in the review and approval of program and finance items. While these meetings have fixed days and times, they can flex up to a day in either direction, at a moments notice, to accommodate the work demands of committee members.
- Ad hoc meetings. These tend to occur more in the manner that Marc describes in his post. I get a phone call asking for a meeting and I might say, “come by in ten minutes,” or “check with me tomorrow to see if I’m available.” The majority of my meetings can be handled this way.
However, in the end, my job responsibilities involve meeting with people. Sometimes, the only way to make that happen is to set a date and time.
While we don’t have the total freedom Marc speaks of, there is still considerable productivity benefit in our system. It is helpful to maintain focus on the task at hand, knowing that you can eliminate the interruptions of schedule requests.
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Comments
Hi Ian
I agree with Mark - most of us work in organisations, making it difficult to dodge meetings. However, your approach of “testing the need” for each one seems a good approach.
By the way, have you read the book by Kerry Gleeson called the “Personal Efficiency Program: how to get organised to do more work in less time”. It predates the GTD book by some time, and is much more practical (and internationally successful - we have even heard of it here in Australia.
Hm. No schedule at all seems like it is over doing it. Basically no one else can count on you being available if they need you for something.
However, there certainly are a lot of things that creep into most people’s schedule that are a waste of time.