The Halo Planner

"Shorter" (the book I posted about last week) featured FLOCC's agreed "green, amber, red" time schedule. They reserve 9am to 10:30am where everyone in the company is focused on deep work in a phone-free zone (red), then takes a 15-minute coffee break (green) where they can chat and then the rest of the morning is for responding to messages and holding meetings (amber). Then they all go to lunch at the same time and then repeat in the pattern in the afternoon. Listen to one of their managers Emily West speak about her experience with the impact of that schedule on her working and home life. Would it work for your business? What are the benefits and drawbacks? #timemanagement #designthinking #focusedwork #phonefreezone https://lnkd.in/gsGDtHar

The average person checks their phone 100 times a day. How can we reconcile that with our deep desire for fulfilling, meaningful focused work? How can we break our distractive habits? In his podcast, Cal Newport suggests to make your desk a "phone free" school. That means turning all messages completely off and not check your phone at all during periods of deep work. Could you do it? Could you do it for 1-hour? 2-hours? What makes sense for your role? #timemanagement #meetings #phonefreezone #distractions

What is your recurring meeting schedule like? Do you have weekly, bi-weekly or monthly meetings that have been in your calendar forever and are no longer serving you or your team? Is there repetition between multiple meetings? Do you attend meetings that could have been emails? Remember that feature on the outlook meeting planner that says "end repeat date"? I always put a date for the repeat to finish. Whether it's at the end of the quarter or at the end of the year, the end of a recurring meeting serves as a reminder to question whether I still need that recurring meeting in my schedule. We all know that we need different meetings for various phases of our own growth, our team's growth or the business growth, yet we often leave these recurring meetings in perpetuity. I attached a blank Weekly Planning Layout from the HALO planner. Download and create your Ideal Week. How you would spend your 168 hours during a typical week? See which meetings are absolutely MUST keeps and which you feel like in an ideal world, you could do without. #timemanagement #efficiency #bettermeetings

"Shorter" by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang describes innovative ways organizations have boosted productivity in order to achieve better results while working fewer hours. These companies were aiming for significantly reduced hours in order to avoid burnout for their teams, but even if that is not your goal, their solutions on increasing efficiency are hugely valuable. One of the key areas of time wastage? Meetings. We all know it, but what have we done to change it? 5 key takeaways: 1. Shorten Meetings: Why is the default length of a meeting 1 hour? Most companies featured shortened the default to 20 or 30 minutes and one even shortened it to 10-minutes. They decided they would rather schedule a second meeting to continue the discussion than have a longer time-wasting one that wasn't needed. 2. Reduce Attendance: Some companies asked themselves "who is really necessary to solve this problem" and tried to invite as few people as possible. If the objective is to have only absolutely essential people, you save others multiple hours over the course of a week. 3. Focus Objectives: Every meeting must have an agenda/objective. If it wasn't defined, people were requested to cancel. One company used "reverse schoolroom" discussions in which people came to meetings with ready solutions for debate instead of spending meeting time talking about the problem. 4. Increase Discipline: If the goal is to get everyone in and out as efficiently as possible, people must be on-time. (주)우아한형제들 (Woowa Bros.) created an 11-point list of how to work better starting with "9:01 is not 9:00" as way to set a high-standard of accountability and respect for one another's time. 5. Restrict Scheduling: With the aim to increase outcomes by giving employees enough time for individual contribution/deep work, certain companies prohibited meeting during blocks of time. For example, no meetings in the mornings, so everyone could get their own work done. Not every element of these case studies will be relevant to all companies, but as I talk to leaders- late night zoom calls and days interrupted by seemingly pointless meetings are some of the key detractors of even the most exciting jobs. It may be worth taking a look at your own meeting schedule with fresh eyes. #shorter #worksmart #meetings #timemangement

This Harvard Business Review article on Self-Care Checklist for Leaders has a lot of practical solutions. Some of my key takeaways are: 1. Limit the number of late-night zoom calls - I try to have fewer than 3 to 4 nights a week where I have calls in the evening. That means I have 3 to 4 evenings to spend with family, read and generally decompress. It's not possible every week, but it's possible most weeks. I would rather have three zoom calls in a row on one night and none the next than three spread across both nights. 2. Meal plan ahead of travel- I often take a quick look at menus at restaurants for work events and make the decision on what to order in advance so that I can stay consistent in my health goals. It makes getting back into the swing of my daily habits less daunting. 3. Invest in your own professional development - often leaders are thinking about their team's training needs, but we all need to grow and learn to stay connected in our work. Every 2 to 3 years, I invest in a deep dive training for myself. This has the added benefit of stepping away from day-to-day for a week or so as well as provides the opportunity to meet other inspiring leaders. 4. Awareness of your emotional health- leadership can be emotionally taxing work and leaders have things going on outside of work. Your ability to take your own emotional temperature is key to being able to lead others. I am notoriously bad at this, often only realizing there is anything wrong until after I am already overwhelmed. I find my most important habit to manage stress is taking a full rest day on the weekend including an essential digital detox. It's important to set the example for your team on what self-care looks like and ultimately your satisfaction and performance in your own role is in your organization's best interest. What are great examples of other self-care habits you've seen at work? #thehaloplanner #selfcareforleaders #hbr

This Harvard Business Review article on Self-Care Checklist for Leaders has a lot of practical solutions. Some of my key takeaways are: 1. Limit the number of late-night zoom calls - I try to have fewer than 3 to 4 nights a week where I have calls in the evening. That means I have 3 to 4 evenings to spend with family, read and generally decompress. It's not possible every week, but it's possible most weeks. I would rather have three zoom calls in a row on one night and none the next than three spread across both nights. 2. Meal plan ahead of travel- I often take a quick look at menus at restaurants for work events and make the decision on what to order in advance so that I can stay consistent in my health goals. It makes getting back into the swing of my daily habits less daunting. 3. Invest in your own professional development - often leaders are thinking about their team's training needs, but we all need to grow and learn to stay connected in our work. Every 2 to 3 years, I invest in a deep dive training for myself. This has the added benefit of stepping away from day-to-day for a week or so as well as provides the opportunity to meet other inspiring leaders. 4. Awareness of your emotional health- leadership can be emotionally taxing work and leaders have things going on outside of work. Your ability to take your own emotional temperature is key to being able to lead others. I am notoriously bad at this, often only realizing there is anything wrong until after I am already overwhelmed. I find my most important habit to manage stress is taking a full rest day on the weekend including an essential digital detox. It's important to set the example for your team on what self-care looks like and ultimately your satisfaction and performance in your own role is in your organization's best interest. What are great examples of other self-care habits you've seen at work? #thehaloplanner #selfcareforleaders #hbr

5 days left to order your 2025 HALO Planner. Feeling overwhelmed with task management, time management and trying to balance work and personal life? The HALO Planner is a quarterly planner to help you set and achieve goals, stay consist with good habits and track how you spend your time. Banish your feeling of overwhelm by having everything you need to do in one place. Pre-orders close on 15 October! www.thehaloplanner.com #thehaloplanner #dreambig #banishoverwhelm #improveeveryday

The Halo Planner monthly newsletter comes out tomorrow. Sign-up now. https://lnkd.in/gBCPi9_6

How intentional are you about how you spend your time at work? I love this concept of Ram Krishnan tracking his time into five key categories: running the business, people & culture, long-term strategy, learning and relationships. I also love that learning gets an equal footing with running the business! It's that important, even at the top to keep investing in your own learning. #timemanagement #continiouslearning #thehaloplanner #pepsi

Take control of your time & order a 2025 HALO Planner now. https://lnkd.in/dxceN25z #thehaloplanner #newplannerlaunch #banishoverwhelm #dreambig #improveeveryday