Overlooking Commitments In Your Calendar

I was on a coaching call with my friend Henry last week and we got to the root of an issue he was having that I think is actually a really common problem people don’t talk about.

I think it’s so valuable to design your life. When you look at a day or a week at a time, and fill that time with the things you want to do, you’re way more likely to do them because you’re seeing how all the puzzle pieces come together. It helps you establish your desired rhythm so that everything can go smoothly.

So in the spirit of that, many people load up their schedules and digital calendars with their best intentions. Wake up at 6am, have an hour long morning routine, create space twice a week for projects and creative work, all on repeat every day at the same time.

It’s a great idea in theory but often doesn’t translate over to lived practice.

The problem is, if you aren’t honoring the timeblocks you’ve set for yourself, eventually lose their meaning. The commitments almost become invisible because you’ve learned to not take them seriously, which makes it really easy to skip, deprioritize, and overlook them.

But… That’s the time that you planned to do that thing that’s most important to you.. So you’re actually at a disadvantage to do that thing because it’s not accounted for in your practical schedule, and only included in your ideal one.

I’m guilty of this myself. I’ve got a Monday morning week start up block I’ve gotten too complacent with. In fact, it’s no longer really needed - so it’d serve me to just eliminate it so that I have more integrity with the things that are on my schedule.

It’s a similar problem that was happening with Henry. Every Friday he has a recurring hour-long meeting to train a team member, but it often doesn’t happen. This slowly evolved so that over-time, neither he nor his team member are even planning on it any more.

However, it’s still a priority to get done, so I advised Henry that he needed to break the pattern. When we disrupt what’s happening unconsciously, what’s assumed, we bring consciousness to it. And with that consciousness make a new choice.

So Henry sent an email to his colleague saying that he wanted to renew the commitment and honor their training time-block. Now it means something again on the schedule. Now it’s going to actually be prioritized. And now, Henry's actions are more likely to align with his intentions.  

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