Stop Working Nights & Weekends with This Scheduling Secret (Ep. 7)

How often do you find yourself drowning in back-to-back meetings, with your Monday optimism crumbling by midweek? By Friday, it feels like the week has derailed, and you’re bracing yourself to catch up all weekend. 

You’re not alone—over 70% of professionals feel they don’t have enough time to focus on their actual work due to constant meetings.

In this conversation, I’m going to reveal how implementing a meeting-free day can revolutionize your productivity. We’ll discuss how setting aside just one day each week for uninterrupted work can lead to increased focus, reduced stress, and a more satisfying work life. 

By the end, you’ll have actionable tips on prioritizing deep work, making your weekends something to look forward to rather than another workday.

Don’t get stuck in the same exhausting cycle, working long hours, nights and weekend, missing the chance to reclaim your time and sanity. This one is a game-changer.

02:15 The Problem

03:52 Benefits of a Meeting-Free Day

04:57 Steps to Implement a Meeting-Free Day

08:45 Additional Resources

09:28 Closing Thoughts

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5 Ways to Calm the Calendar Chaos:
https://theothersideofbusy.com/chaos

Transcript

0:00

Do you under the workweek with dread because of back-to-back meetings, any optimism you might've had crumbles by midweek. Because you feel like you've been derailed. You're just knowing and bracing yourself that you're going to catch up this weekend because you've had no time to do any meaningful work. You're not alone. Over 70% of professionals feel like they don't have enough time to actually focus on the work due to the constant meetings. In today's conversation, I'm going to reveal how implementing a meeting free day can revolutionize your productivity. We're going to discuss how setting aside one day, each week for uninterrupted work can lead to increase, focus, reduce stress in a more satisfying work life. But at the end, you'll have actionable tips on prioritizing the deep whore. Making your weekends, something to look forward to rather than just another work. Don't get stuck in the same exhausting cycle, working long hours and nights and weekends. Missing your chance to claim your time and sanity. This one's game-changer. As women, it's easy to feel over-scheduled over tired and some days just over it. It's time to ditch the guilt. Still get things done and have time left for ourselves and the most important people in our lives. How do we do that? You're about to find out. Hey there, my name's Jenna Pasha and here you'll find the latest biohacks mindset shifts and calendar control strategies to get you to the other side of the busy. I'll bring you insights on how to get more done during work hours, so you can shut it off and prioritize what truly matters. In today's conversation, I'm going to share how implementing a meeting free day can help you change your productivity during the workweek. By the end, you'll have actionable tips on prioritizing the deep, meaningful focused work. Making your weekends more enjoyable and your Monday's less scary and stressful. Make sure you stick around to the end though, where I'm going to share with you a quick audit, you can do to free up more time on your meeting field days. So let's dive in. What are the benefits of a meeting free day? Well, like I mentioned, over 70% of professionals feel they don't have enough time to focus on their actual work due to constant meetings. According to a 2023 survey from a Asana. On global work. We end up with this time, confetti. 15 minutes here between the meeting 30 minutes there. Time to do little things, maybe check an email, get back to someone. But nothing of deep meaning nothing of true focus. That's moving our projects forward, moving our businesses forward. We just don't have enough time. We also can't concentrate on the task at hand because we're thinking about all the jobs we've left unfinished. Have you felt this it's called attention residue and it is real. It's the reason that you go to bed at night, still thinking about all the things you've left undone. Even if you got 15 things done today, you'll still have the ones that you didn't on your mind. And this can make us anxious and keep us distracted from doing meaningful work. Or even focusing on the small things in front of us. This time confetti in between meetings also has us doing a lot of context switching. Checking this email here for financials, going over here to do creative work, stepping over here to check in with a client. And that context switching really causes a lot of mental fatigue. Because we have to switch to different areas of our brain. To accomplish the thing. Leaving us exhausted. The end of a Workday. It's also super hard to find a creative rhythm when you only have small pockets of time. Deep work can be hard to get to with the interruptions of a regular Workday and all of the meetings. A meeting free day. Reduces the chance of interruption and meetings, which equals higher productivity. Bieber focus. More creative rhythm. Right. It's a better use of time and resources because people can really dive into the work. That's truly moving them forward. The work that is moving the business forward and paying dividends. It also results in happier employees. And happy are you. This is because when we get the heads down time to actually catch up on the work, it leaves us with a more positive work environment. Making people feel more accomplished. And less stressed. When you're less stressed. You improve your satisfaction at work, you improve your ability to grow and to actually be satisfied in that business for many more years.. So hopefully now you're excited for a meeting free day, but wondering how in the world do I get this into my schedule? I have four steps to help you implement one. Step one is to evaluate when you have the most energy and brain power during your week. Is this Monday's when you're fresh off of weekend rejuvenation, or you will be fresh out of a weekend rejuvenation. Once you have a meeting free day. Or maybe it's Wednesdays after you've had two days of work. And then you want to catch up on all of those things before you move into Thursday and Friday. Whatever it is. Choose a day now. And here's the thing. You can change it. This isn't set in stone. It's an experiment. So try it out for three months and see how it works for you. If you're on a team. I highly encourage you to get consensus on which day of the week works best for the whole team to block calendars. This will help you all plan ahead. Honor each other's boundaries. And really knock items off everyone's to do list it will boost productivity and give tasks, their complete attention and focus. Step two to implementing your meeting free day is to keep the commitment. So once you choose your day, I want you to go block it out. Even if you have to start a few weeks in advance. Maybe you start by blacking Monday is, but the next few Mondays, you already have meetings in the afternoon. That's a fine then just black. What you can take Monday afternoon to do the deep work and start stepping into the meeting free day over the next few weeks. If someone asks you for a meeting on Mondays, you can just simply say, have another commitment. Will Tuesday work instead? I have another commitment. Is a complete sentence. We don't need to explain ourselves and you do truly have another commitment to yourself. Which is just as, or more important than the commitments that we make to others. To do the deep work. Step three to implementing your meeting free day is to create boundaries and a space for that deep work. That might look like getting out of the office if you work in the office, so you can't be interrupted and you truly can get to the work. Maybe it's going to a coffee shop or just finding. Uh, another space in your home. Space in the park, outside somewhere where you can truly focus and get into the work and feel like you can't be distracted. So you can really honor this boundary that you've created. And step four is to choose high leverage work for your meeting free days on the right. Maybe in the first few weeks, you're going to play catch up on all these onesy twosy little things that need to get done. But as you step into having meeting free days more often, it's really important that we make the most of it. So choosing high leverage work are those things that you really need time to get into, maybe it's writing or creative thinking. Maybe it's analytical work or coding or design. Or some other project with complexity that you really need to sit down and focus in, get in the right frame of brain to do that deep work. Don't go into a meeting free day without a plan, or you'll end up doing the onesy twosy work or catching up on the emails. And that's not the purpose of this. It's to move your most important work forward. Move your goals forward, move your business forward so you can truly see a difference. In ninety, a hundred and eighty three hundred sixty five days. And again, ignore those routine tasks and email. Focusing on the deep work, that's truly gonna move you forward. So I hope you use these steps to identify and schedule a meeting free day and see your productivity soar. If you have other things that are working for you or ways that you've adjusted your meeting free days, maybe you have more than one now because it's worked so well for you. Will you send me a note I'd love to hear from you. I'm at Jenna dot Piche. on Instagram. In a moment. I'm going to share with you a quick audit. You can use to free up more time on your meeting field days, but first. If you're ready to choose and implement your meeting free day. Amazing. I can't wait to hear about all you accomplish. But most people, I talk to need a little extra help rearranging their schedules and prioritizing the important work. So I've put together something really valuable for you. It's a free resource called five strategies to calm the calendar chaos. In it, I'll share a way you can simplify the work you plan to do each day. So you can skip from the, what am I going to do to getting right into the most important things that are going to move you forward and help you make progress. You can sign up for that@theothersideofbusy.com slash chaos or click the link in the show notes. All right. Want to know a quick audit you can use to free up more time and your meeting filled days. Perform a meeting. audit. First look at your recurring meetings and ask, are these the right attendees? Are we getting the results we want? Are we leaving these meetings with the desired goal or action accomplished? Create a list of where that is true. And the list of where it isn't. The ones where it isn't ask, can you scrap that and start over? The ones where the meetings truly are working. Then ask yourself. Can this meeting happen less frequently, maybe biweekly or monthly rather than every week. If not going to be shorter. Can it be 15 or 25 minutes rather than 30, 50, rather than 60. If this is an update meeting, could it be a short video routed to those who need it or a bi-weekly brief rather than an actual meeting, saving everyone time and allowing them to read it on their own schedule. And then update accordingly. As new meeting requests, come in, ask yourself. Is there a clear agenda for this meeting and is my role clearly defined along with the desired outcome? Do I really need to attend this? Could someone else. By releasing what isn't working and optimizing the meetings that are necessary, we can free up space for a meeting free day to do the deep work that moves our careers and our businesses forward. That allows us to prioritize life outside of work. I hope you found something valuable in this episode, if you do, will you please share it? And until next time may the work that you do create the meaning and the life that you truly deserve. I'm rooting for you.