Creating and protecting space
I spent most of my professional life with very little space in my calendar (or my life!). I squeezed meetings and engagements into every minute of waking time and derived a lot of (ego) satisfaction from my very full life.
It was during a “Perfect Day” workshop led by the amazing Jayson Gaignard in April 2021 that I realized how much I craved SPACE. As I outlined my perfect day in my notebook through the workshop exercises, this word just kept appearing on my page. Even just looking at the word on the page instantly slowed my breath and flooded my heart with warmth and excitement.
Since then, I’ve made it my priority to create space in my life. Space for spontaneity, creativity, reflection and simply being with myself.
As I entered 2024, I decided to become even more intentional about creating space. For the first time, I carved out a few ‘do not book’ blocks in my calendar every week (some during the workday and some in the evenings or early mornings), and felt overcome with excitement entering the year about all the spontaneous magic to come. However, a month in, I’ve realized that CREATING the space is only one part of the equation. The second and third parts are crucial and far more challenging: PROTECTING it and BEING INTENTIONAL about it.
I quickly found that these beautiful blocks of space in my calendar were almost begging to be filled. When a client called with an enticing new project – even when we were already close to full capacity - it became near impossible to say no as those blocks of unallocated time stared me in the face. (In client services, there’s a significant brain shift that needs to happen to become comfortable with ‘unproductive’ time - one I clearly hadn't made.) Even in the rare instances I was disciplined enough to keep client work out of the blocks – these windows quickly became a catch-all for absolutely everything under the sun – from appointments to ad-hoc meetings to postponed meetings to meetings about meetings. Further, knowing the unallocated blocks existed started to make bad habits slip back into my life – overworking things to the point of diminishing returns, work expanding to fill the time, and a tendency to say yes to every personal and professional opportunity that presented itself to me. What had happened? I was back on the pre-pandemic rollercoaster but this time it was two times faster and 10 times more terrifying!
Which is how I came to realize the importance of being intentional about these blocks – and linking them back to what matters. I had defined my 3 big personal rocks for the year – but I wasn’t living them. I realized they should be the sole force that guides what lands in those blocks and what doesn’t.
So, here I am – searching for an iterated approach for Q2!
What are your best practices for building space into your week? How do you ruthlessly protect it? How have you become more intentional about how you fill the space?