A year ago I scheduled the first two hours of my workdays as focus time: a period when I deal only with my strategic workload. It was one of the best decisions for productivity. The benefits are obvious. If you handle the important tasks in the morning, it means you are truly focused on them. Also, you deal with complex projects while you’re fresh and full of energy.
At first, I often struggled with allocating two hours every day. Routine tasks and urgent calls demanded attention in the morning. But today I noticed that last month I actually spent most of my focus time being truly focused.
Keeping the desired schedule in my calendar helped a lot. It constantly reminded me about priorities and shaped my behavior in the right way. Keeping in mind that the first two hours were already booked, I got into the habit of planning to do all the other things later in the day. My colleagues became accustomed to my reluctance to communicate first thing in the morning. Today it is objectively easier to be focused every morning.
Maybe there are other things that I could dramatically improve just by relaxing a bit, melting away into wishful thinking, and editing my calendar?
