How do you feel when you have a week with no scheduled meetings?

Our reader poll today asks: How do you feel when you have a week with no scheduled meetings?

• Amazing! I can get work done and not be pulled in all directions – 56%
• Terrified! What am I going to do with all that open time? – 5%
• Wait…you guys have weeks without meetings? – 38

Protecting your time. While I know having a week without meetings can seem like a fairytale, don’t dismiss it out of hand. While you may not be able to engineer five clean days on your calendar, ask yourself if you can protect at least two or three. Take charge of your availability. Instead of letting people select times to meet, ask them for windows they’re free then schedule meetings when it’s best for you. Batch your meetings and try to put them all on the same day. Place work blocks on your calendar and only cede that time if you have no other options. While it takes some effort beyond being a simple “invite accepter,” you’ll find it’s not as hard as you might think to carve out time for yourself where you can focus on getting actual work done.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.