Will you send an invite? How to manage time at work ⌛️
Will you send an invite? How to manage time at work ⌛️
Read to the end for a (mostly kind) take on Daylight Savings.
First of all - nice to see you again! We sincerely hope that what we've shared so far has helped you start to create, have, or find a nice (or nicer!) work life. In just over a month of Nice Work’s existence, we've covered:
How the work we do can be nice, pretty and clear.
How can we respect the self we bring to work - one that rests and thrives in a pretty environment.
For the next few weeks, we're talking about THEM - the humans we work with. 👀 Unless you've found a way to go hobbit mode, humans will be a part of your work life.
hat tip to by for sharing this gem 👆 an amazing newsletter to subscribe to if you love (or love-to-hate-but-love to stay-up-to-date-on-regardless) all things internet culture.
Much to talk about, so we'll take it one edition at a time. This week, we'll hone in on timing and how to deal with humans' perpetual struggle with time. After that, we're tackling:
✨ Boundaries [The thing we love to talk about and hate to do!]
✨ Emailing like a human [Mostly not a ChatGPT take, we promise]
✨ A basic human needs primer [Are they mad at me, or am I just hungry? Maybe they're hungry?]
✨ Last but not least - how to deal with cagey humans?
No time to waste! Let’s talk timing.
✨ Time vs. Timing
We can't control time, but we can control how we react, respond to, and plan for it. That's timing.
We can't control someone losing track of time in a meeting. We can, however, know when we need to depart a call to get to our next one. We can't control people canceling on us at the last minute, but we can control how much flexibility we have for them. We can't control our train/metro/subway not running, but we can control how (and how proactively!) we communicate our delays.
Now that we have definitions, let's explore some core truths about timing.
✨ Truths about timing
✨ There is no one right way to do it.
This goes for all timing - the timing of life. Trust, as someone who LOVES a process, there's no magic solution of apps, calendar automation, Pomodoro timers, etc., that is guaranteed to make us Humans Who Can Control Time. You have to figure out what works for you, which will be as unique and weird as you are. And no matter how well it works, remember that we remain at the whims of time. When your train isn’t running, there's nothing to do besides wait. Also, our systems only work as well as we do - having Calendly, Motion, or even a personal assistant won't help if we don't commit.
✨ There is no one right way for someone else to do it.
If you have found a system that works for your timing, great. It doesn't mean it will work for someone else - so try to fight the urge to convince them that your system will make them, too, A Human Who Can Control Time. They're unique and weird. Let them find their unique and weird ways.
✨ We can't control other people's timing.
If someone is unable or unwilling to try to get their timing under control, there just isn't anything we can do about that. It might not be malicious. Maybe they're just supremely unlucky in how time shows up in their world. Maybe they work somewhere where there is no respect for timing. They may be in charge and think the only way to be successful is to run things the way they do (without timing? Bold move.)
These work humans are adults, and it is up to them to take control of their timing. You will only stress yourself out trying to create processes and systems for them. Because they will NOT follow it.
An exception to this can be newer-to-work humans. For some reason, we still learn geometry in school but not, like, if we're a morning person, or what our ikigai flow state is, or just how long work stuff takes. It's more than fine to help these humans figure out their optimally timed work-selves. Two books we recommend they start with are listed below!
✨ As humans who work, we will need to work with other timing systems and other humans.
Sometimes our job, a client or another human that pays us has a system they need us to use for work timing. Keeping in mind there's no one right way to do things, we can be open to the idea that this system can work for us too. It might even make our lives easier (hello, visible Google calendars company-wide!)
But even if it isn't ideal (hello, billing hour software) - it is the job, and if it REALLY REALLY doesn't work for us, then our next step is to find a solution there or find a workplace elsewhere.
Love this. But I’m getting a feeling that I’m the “work adult” that has trouble with timing 🫠
Let’s explore that feeling with a little self-reflection.You’re probably not in control of your own timing if you:
Are regularly late to calls
Notice calls run over with eerie regularity…because you’re still talking
Reschedule or flake on your meetings often
Get to the end of the day without having done the important things that need to get done
This is a big obstacle to having a nice work life because whether consciously or not, you’re asking other people to manage timing FOR you. You rely on them to have well-structured calendars, an organized to-do list, and plenty of flexibility to accommodate you, but you haven’t yet committed to building these things for yourself. And while it might not be malicious, it can read as disrespectful.
People will forget what you said / what time you showed up to the call, but they will never forget how it felt waiting around for you.
With these truths in mind: One of, if not THE, best steps we can take today to ease our working relationships with other humans is to explore ways to get our timing under control. ✨
✨ Timing We Can Control
1. We can use the valuable time of others wisely.
If you are running a call or a meeting, treat the time of your fellow humans the way you want your time treated. Namely, as a finite and valuable resource. Come to the call prepared, keep an eye on the clock, and find a way to wrap up as early (and effectively) as possible. During the call, focus on actions, not just notes, to give everyone a clear roadmap for what’s happening next!
(PS. A good way to start wrapping a call is by summarizing these actions - it signals to everyone that the call is ending).
Other Tips:
Only schedule 1-hour meetings if it really needs an hour. An hour is 12.5% of a workday - a lot to ask for!
Plan to end the call at least 5 minutes early, but tell no one else. The time pressure will keep you on task, which is contagious! Don’t feel like you have to cut the small talk - if it's what makes your workplace human, you should keep it. Just plan for it.
In this model, a 30-minute meeting is 20 minutes (5 for small talk, 20 for the work and wrap-up, ending 5 minutes early). How on earth do you do anything in 20 minutes? Amazon is evil, but I was a begrudging fan of this “send a memo before the meeting” approach they popularized. If a whole memo is too much, try sending an agenda 24 hours in advance (with links, questions and action items), so everyone is ready.
2. We can respect the valuable time we have away from work.
One of the ways we can have better work timing is by doing work stuff AT WORK.
When we commit to this, we may realize we’ve been borrowing from personal time to get our work done.
Imagine having a paper due on Friday at 5 pm. No exceptions - we submit by that time, or it’s late. But now imagine the deadline extends from Friday at 5 pm to Monday at 7 am. We can finish the paper, but only if we use our weekend time. That’s what happens when we let work bleed into our evenings and weekends - we remove the pressure to prioritize (at a cost to our personal life).
If we’re bleeding over into our evenings and weekends, we're likely bleeding into other people's evenings and weekends. So, let’s not do this. But if we want to for our own reasons, then we need to be careful not to interrupt others.
If we’re tempted to send a ping late, on the weekend, or in any situation where the human we’re contacting is not expected to be online, we should schedule it.
Cool, how do I do that?
Emails can be scheduled!
Pings and instant messages can be scheduled!
No option yet on WhatsApp.
Or go analog! Draft the message, save it in Notes/drafts, and send it tomorrow. 🙏
If you’re a human in charge of other humans, you especially need to schedule your communications. Or aggressively coach your humans to turn off notifications after work hours. That way, you can rest assured you aren’t pressuring them to respond.
PS. Timing is critical for managers to get right because when we manage other humans, we have an outsize effect on their work experience. Here’s a weeklong journaling exercise for auditing and improving our timing!
2a. We can remember time zones are real.
Our timing differs from anyone else’s, but it is especially different to humans living elsewhere. If you regularly work with humans worldwide, build their timezone into your considerations as you work together. That makes it much easier to respond/work in your timezone, too.
Tip: Add a second timezone to your calendar so you can see what time it is for the humans you work with.
3. We can do our best to remember that we can't control other humans or their timing.
Yep, this is so important we listed it twice. Rarely is their lack of timing malicious (we hope). Frustrating, yes, but not malicious. And because it isn't malicious, we don't need to spend our valuable time being upset or angry about it. Let it go, and focus on what you can control. If they’re making their bad timing our problem, though, we need to communicate that. Tune in with us next week to learn how we can set kind and firm boundaries.
There are two days a year when all time and timing go to absolute hell. I call it Calendar Carnage, but the rest of the world calls it Daylight Savings Time. 🫠
Not only are we all out of sorts with our sleep, but it also immediately changes one of the best cues we have for going through our workday and life in general: sunlight.
So….if there’s ever a week to be kind to other humans, it’s this one.
PS. Jade is taking us through how sunlight and other basic needs affect us in a few weeks. So if you have a work wife who eats lunch at her desk, consider forwarding this newsletter to her so she can subscribe!
But speaking of a week to be nice - did you also know that Europe and the USA spring forward AND fall back on different weeks?! 😱
For one week in the fall and TWO weeks in the spring, we sit on a totally different timetable than usual. (Those calculations we do to figure out "what time is it in California / what time is it in Amsterdam?" Completely wrong.) So when a calendar invite inevitably gets missed, who's at fault? The human who sprang forward already, or the human still fallen back? Whose time is right - the human that owns the calendar invite or the human invited to the call?
Neither, and both.
It isn’t about being right. It’s about remembering time is uncontrollable and finding ways to be resilient (and kind!) when it works against us.
TL;DR: It’s challenging being a human in the best of times. All we can do is embrace our timing and never, EVER forget that time itself is beautifully uncontrollable.
Kindly,
Rachel
Links We Love
✨ Guides and Freebies
A great template email for helping your manager/teams/clients/customers know that Calendar Carnage Time (Daylight Savings Time) is on its way next week 😱An exercise in good timing + pretty work? Love to see it.
Week-Long Timing Journal Exercise (A must-do for Humans in Charge/Managers of Humans, but an excellent exercise for all of us!)
📰 Reading
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing (A great book discovered during the pandemic, when the day really needed some structure)
Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life (Once we know when we should do things, the next question is what is our flow state/deep work? How do we find it?)
How to Restore our Dwindling Attention Spans (If we think we’ve got it all handled but the notification overload 🫠)