Fixed focus time goals 🥅

This is the 15th petals snapshot of spring 2024 and today I want to talk about focus time, something that I think we all try and strive for but not necessarily get. Now as managers, whether you're an engineering manager, a product manager, a line manager, project manager, whatever your role is, it's really hard to find all quality focused time to work on things. I think for me, I become a slave to my calendar sometimes and I have to work my day around my calendar and other people's needs. Absolutely understandable. That's part of my role. But to really carve out at least a good hour to focus on a thing is really quite difficult. So what I've started to do now is set up recurring focus time within my calendar on a weekly basis. Now I also try to optimize this to when I feel most productive and when I know I am most productive. There's not much point in doing this on a Monday morning, really Friday afternoons possibly, but I really find I'm in my stride sort of early afternoon, mostly midweek as well. I've got a better idea what the focus and the goals are for the week. So I know what I'm going to be working on. And what I also do on those recurring items is put in a little note of what the goal will be for that time. It might not necessarily be what I'm going to do, it might just be a topic, it might be an outcome that I want to achieve, but at least by doing that, I know what I'm going to be achieving in that focused time. It could be an hour, could be two if you get lucky, might be even the whole afternoon if you manage to work things out. In the interest of openness, I generally leave my calendar open to everyone that I work with so they can see when I'm available for one and what I'm doing if not. If I need to keep things private, I mark it as such. But generally most things are open. But again, it's in the interest of openness. This is what I call my protected focus time. I want to be focused on this project or this product or this outcome. So if it's really important, I might allow changes, but at least people understand what I'm meant to be doing in that time. So there's my little tip for the week. It is Friday and I'll be back on Monday with more petal snapshots.