Tactics to Make Time for Work that Advances Your Career

I'm a manager but I was buried in individual work last week.

A new project ate up all of my time and I needed to squeeze out every ounce of productivity out of my day.

You face the same thing.

You need to find time for critical work that advances your career, while tackling your day-to-day responsibilities.

These are the tactics I use to create boundaries and make time for work that advances my career.

Use mornings and afternoons for Deep Work

If you're not doing Deep Work, you're slowing down your career (so please read the book).

Deep Work is a period of uninterrupted work where you focus on one problem with zero distractions.

It allows you to make progress on the projects most important to your career.

I strive to block my calendar in the mornings and afternoons for Deep Work.

When I sign on in the morning, I have the mental clarity and energy to tackle difficult problems.

In the afternoon, the work pace feels slower. East coast people are signing off and west coast people don't want meetings late in the afternoon. It's a great time refocus on important projects before you sign-off for the day.

Here's an example of my schedule next week:

You see a couple of things:

• A 8-9:30am block MWF. This is my Deep Work time, but I also get time on Tuesday and Thursday. This signals that my morning are sacred. I rarely schedule my own meetings during this time.
• No recurring meetings scheduled in the late afternoon. I have no meetings scheduled after 2pm. Yes, things come up sometimes. But usually, my afternoons are free. That means I can get deep in a project again before I sign-off for the day.

Blocking mornings and afternoons is great, but what about all the other meetings I have?

Schedule meetings for mid-day and mid-week

If I block mornings and afternoons, I have to schedule my meetings somewhere else.

I do two things:

1. Schedule as many meetings as possible for mid-day.
2. Schedule most meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

I don't adhere to this 100%, but it's the goal.

Revisiting my schedule, you can see meetings crammed into Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday:

This does two things:

1. Keeps mornings and afternoons available for Deep Work.
2. Keeps Mondays and Fridays open for catching up and working on new ideas.

Block calendar for support tasks

When you have a lot to do, you can't let people control your calendar.

If you have shallow work to do but you can't find the time, block it on your calendar as a meeting. Like this:

The red box is a code review I have to do but keep procrastinating on.

I put it on my calendar so other people don't take my time and I make a commitment to myself to do the work.

It's surprisingly helpful.

Batch responses to Slack messages

Don't let Slack ruin your productivity.

You can spend all day responding to Slack messages if you let yourself.

If feels like you're productive but you're not moving the needle on the critical work that advances your career.

Pick a couple times a day to respond to all your Slack messages and don't open Slack in between time. It will feel painful but nothing bad will happen, I promise. If someone really needs you, they'll text you.

These tactics aren't sexy.

But they are tactics that will help you set a foundation that allows you to do work that advances your career.

Advancement is the goal, not busyness.