Grip

The art of working smart (and getting to what matters most)

Rick Pastoor

• Publisher: Thorsons
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9780008510589
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Self Improvement

PART 1

GRIP AND YOUR WEEK

Whether you’re a student or CEO, public servant or president, starting a new job or starting your own business, you have exactly seven twenty-four-hour days at your disposal each week. No more, no less.

Want to get more done with less hassle? Don’t look at how much time you have. Look at how you spend it.

You’ll make better use of the hours we all have if you pick a path and then spend time on what matters most. Picking a path—and sticking to it—sounds pretty straightforward. But with all the things life throws at you, it can be anything but. Not to worry. We’re going to start simple, by defining exactly what that path is (your priorities) and planning out a single workweek.

In the first part of this book I’ll show you how to work strategically. In practical terms, we’ll look at how to get a better grip on the hours in your workweek. How you can use your calendar, to-do list, and email to get your work done faster and better. And how to handle all the unexpected stuff that comes your way.

Whenever people ask me for suggestions about how they work, my first question is always: “What’s your schedule look like this week?” The answer tells me right off whether they have a plan for their week before they dive in. And whether they have a strategy. Now you might say: “Of course I put all my appointments on my calendar—tell me something I don’t know!”

Challenge accepted.

1. YOUR CALENDAR IS YOUR ROCK

Setting priorities, scheduling your work, and making it happen

Your calendar is the basis of everything. Okay, glad we got that straight.

In a workweek where plans can change at any moment, you want one thing you can always rely on. Something solid you can look to when things get chaotic. Make that thing your calendar.

Much as I like trying out new tools, I always come back to my trusty calendar in the end. It has helped me tremendously over the years—not just to keep track of appointments, but to structure my workweek. In fact, it’s the bedrock I build my week on. Whatever else happens, my calendar tells me what really matters. I spend less energy wondering, “What should I do first this morning?” because I can just check my calendar.

To make your calendar work for you, it has to be up to date. Want your calendar to be rock-solid reliable? Want to never again overlook a critical deadline or appointment? Then from now on, just do what your calendar says. Period. If you’re scheduling time there for things you’re not doing, now’s the time to scrap those appointments. Be brutal. That recurring meeting you never attend? Cancel it. The old reminders for bookkeeping that you always ignore? Delete them.

Start fresh with only those items you know you’ll stick to.

FOUR REASONS TO LOVE YOUR CALENDAR

1. Your calendar is finite

Your calendar only has so much room, and that can feel limiting. Just think: if there were more hours in a day you could park your whole to-do list in your calendar. But a calendar’s limits are actually its most brilliant feature. That’s how it protects you from overextending yourself.

You probably already put important meetings and appointments on your calendar, but what about day-to-day work? Most people don’t bother scheduling time for their own tasks. But when you add your own work to your calendar, it makes your true workload visible at a glance. You’re less likely to pile too much on your plate because you know when it’s full. That makes it much easier to say no when you need to.

More important, it’s what empowers you to say: “Yes, I’d love to!” to that exciting new opportunity that comes up. Because you’ll know you can fit it in.

2. Your calendar is like a navigation system

A navigation system does more than give you directions from A to B. Most will show you where traffic is backed up and guide you to the nearest gas station when you need one. All so you can keep your eyes on the road. That’s convenient because you only need to keep track of one system, and one system keeps things simple, right?

I bet you also already use some kind of calendar. So why not take full advantage of everything this familiar tool can offer? No need for extra apps or add-ons. Your calendar will help get you where you want to go each week. And with less hassle.

3. Your calendar keeps track of how you spend time

By setting aside time in your calendar for your own tasks, you’ll get used to figuring out how much time you need for those tasks beforehand. After all, it’s hard to schedule time to do research for a new client, prepare a presentation, or draft a quote without first estimating whether you need half an hour or two. And when you finish a task, you’ll know right away if your estimate was on the long or the short side. You’ve created a direct feedback loop that’s going to help you plan more accurately. Another huge benefit: getting good at these estimates and delivering your work on time helps build trust with bosses, colleagues, and clients.

4. Your calendar is public

Most companies now let staff share their calendars so everybody can see when everybody else is available. If your employer does this, it’s another excellent reason to schedule all your work for the week ahead. That way your coworkers and managers can see what you’re working on, which is especially helpful when working remotely. But the biggest benefit of scheduling your work? Colleagues won’t automatically assume you’re free.

USING YOUR CALENDAR

Okay, enough theory: time for action! Now we’re going to plan your week in six steps, blocking time for all the most important stuff. Not sure what those things are? Don’t worry, we’ll figure that out as we go.

Step 1. Choose a calendar

When choosing a calendar, go for the digital kind that you can access on all your devices (laptop, smartphone, office computer, tablet, or whatever else you use for your work). Pick one you like using.

A paper calendar may get the job done, but I’m not a fan and here’s why. For starters, you miss out on loads of helpful features. A paper calendar won’t send you reminders and you can’t share it easily with other people. Plus plans tend to change, and that can be a pain on paper.

Personally, I like Google Calendar. But similar planning tools like Microsoft Outlook and Apple’s iCloud work fine too. Go to gripbook.com/apps and I’ll help you decide which calendar to use.

Step 2. Use your calendar for meetings of all kinds

The first thing to put in your calendar: plans you’ve made with other people for the coming week. You’ve probably done that already, but double-check just to be sure nothing’s missing. If you’re meeting off-site, you’ll want to make sure you know where and include those details too.

Step 3. Determine the stop time

A third detail you need to decide when planning an appointment is: What time will it end? In the next step I’ll show why it’s important to include specific stop times in your calendar, but for now just go ahead and make your best guess. If you know from experience that meetings with certain people tend to run over, factor that in too. The key is to be realistic.

Step 4. Send out invites to people

When I’m the one scheduling meetings, I try to make a point of sending out invites to everyone. Digital calendars let you do this easily by adding people’s email addresses. That way they also have direct access to the meeting details. If it’s a virtual meeting, don’t forget to include the info people will need to join. Another reason I recommend sending out invites: it forces you to consider the length of your meeting. I’ve noticed it makes me more mindful of other people’s time. Say I want to schedule coffee with a client to get acquainted. Clearly, two hours would be asking too much of their time. But what about one hour? Or should I keep it to a short-and-sweet thirty minutes? By scheduling both a start and stop time in your calendar, you let others know what to expect. Sometimes I’ll ask the other person to send me an invite. It’s a gentle way of saying: “You decide how much time you have for me.”

Step 5. Travel, prep, and postmeeting time

Don’t forget to include time on the road. Travel can take up an important chunk of your schedule, yet it’s easy to overlook. A simple way to avoid this pitfall is to make a habit of scheduling travel time when you plan an appointment.

Also, don’t forget about prep time. Preparing for meetings is the easiest way to make your time together more effective. To figure out how much time you need, ask yourself: What will it take to make this meeting run smoothly? You can break it down using this checklist:

CHECKLIST

• How much time do I need to get to the meeting?
• How much time do I need to prepare?
• Can I prep on the day itself, or does it need to be earlier?
• Do I need to send any materials to people ahead of time?
• Is there anything I need to order or buy beforehand?
• Are there any meeting outcomes I can anticipate and plan for now? Should I go ahead and set aside time for those actions?

You can schedule time separately in your calendar for meeting prep, travel, and postmeeting tasks. In the example shown, I prepped for a meeting on the day itself. In most cases, that works fine. The result might look like this:

I can see right off that my day is blocked almost solid with three meetings, but that there’s enough leeway to arrive prepared and on time, and to work through what was discussed in the team meeting and brainstorming session right afterward.

Step 6. Use your calendar for your own work

This last step is key: adding your own work to your calendar. Of course meetings are part of that, too, but here I want to focus on your most important day-to-day activities. Here’s where your calendar can make all the difference.

Think for a second about how you spend money. Especially with big purchases, we tend to be critical, running down a mental checklist before deciding whether an expense is worth it. Somehow we’re not nearly as careful with our time. Precious hours slip through our fingers like sand. So let’s try a little thought experiment. I’d like you to think back to your last vacation. More specifically, to the week before you left.

That final week—before you switch on your out-of-office reply and shut down your computer for some much-deserved time off—feels different from other weeks. Why? Because you have a hard deadline and a clear picture of where you want to be at week’s end. You’re fueled by a healthy pressure because after that week your time’s up. Your thinking gets black-and-white: What’s critical? What’s fea...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Praise for Grip
• Copyright
• Note to Readers
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1: Grip and Your Week
• Part 2: Grip and Your Year
• Part 3: Grip and Your Life
• Bonus chapter: Keeping better notes: Using an app to jot down your thoughts (and find them again)
• Bonus chapter: GRIP on vacation: How to take off and come back with a clear head
• Bonus chapter: GRIP and managing a team: Keeping an eye on the big picture when you’re in charge
• Recommended reading
• Sources
• Thanks
• Notes
• About the author
• About the Publisher