Hear me out, Reader.
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You might be saying “Jossie, I want more open time on my calendar, not another meeting.”
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I know this sounds counterintuitive.
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A lot of managers have way too many meetings on their calendar, and usually when working with clients, we focus on removing meetings from their calendars.
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But there is one meeting that I tell managers to add to their calendar – office hours.
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You have probably found yourself working on Slack, helping and coaching a team member with an important project. They’re checking in with you on Slack every once in a while, and you’re having to respond to them.
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Even though it may be helping that team member, it’s causing you to have a lot of interrupts during your day.
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You don’t want to be unavailable to your team, but you also want to avoid additional distractions. There are already plenty of those.
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What can you do instead?
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Schedule one or two office hours during the week when they can come, bring all their items to you, and you can discuss with them.
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This means that instead of having to be in Slack all the time and being constantly interrupted, you focus on it during your office hours.
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This is a great way to practice your boundaries and protect your time, while still being there for your team.
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You are also helping your team set their own boundaries and have fewer distractions of their own. Most of the time, items can wait a few days, and this also allows your team members to get better at debugging their own challenges.
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You can let team members know that if something is truly urgent, they can still reach out to you. That way they feel supported, and overall Slack distractions have been reduced – so everyone can have more focus time.
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Cheering you on,
Jossie

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