If you’re like a lot of people, you’re probably terrible at managing your time. Jeremiah Dillon, the head of product marketing for Google Apps for Work, has written some very interesting advice over at Medium about the ideal way to organize your work week and you’ll be happy to know that one of its main tenets is that you should be having fewer meetings.
Basically, a lot of people spend their days hopping from one meeting to another without really having the time to think and concentrate on a given task. Because of this, Dillon thinks we should try to both have fewer meetings and to schedule the meetings we do have later in the week when we aren’t as energetic and thus aren’t going to be all that productive at creative problem solving anyway. Here’s a sample of what a well organized work week should look like, according to Dillon:
- Monday: Energy ramps out of the weekend — schedule low demand tasks like setting goals, organizing and planning.
- Tuesday, Wednesday: Peak of energy — tackle the most difficult problems, write, brainstorm, schedule your Make Time.
- Thursday: Energy begins to ebb — schedule meetings, especially when consensus is needed.
- Friday: Lowest energy level — do open-ended work, long-term planning and relationship building.
Intuitively this makes a lot of sense — Tuesday and Wednesday are your best times to be productive because you’ve shaken off your weekend cobwebs but aren’t yet worn down from the daily grind. By Friday, however, you’re pretty tired and are best served by planning for the start of the next week.
It’s also helpful if people organize their days into half-day blocks instead of half-hour blocks so they have more time to concentrate on what they’re doing. Constantly rushing from one meeting to another doesn’t give you the time you need to think and create.
Check out Dillon’s full post at this link — it’s definitely something to consider if you find yourself struggling with time management.
