Get it done by Thursday

How to create more space in your schedule

Longtime readers know that, at least for information jobs, I advocate keeping Friday as open as possible.

This isn’t so you can take a long weekend, though that’s nice from time to time too. The idea is that most of us benefit from having open space in our schedules. We don’t know on Monday all the things that we’ll need to do by the end of the week. If every minute is already spoken for, then there’s no place to put anything new that comes up. We also need space to think and plan and strategize, without racing off to something new every 15 minutes.

Keeping Fridays open is partly about not scheduling meetings for Friday until you get to Friday and determine that this would be the best use of your time. But it also means not having a full plate of things to get caught up on. Some work duties are time specific; if you have to file something daily, then obviously you can’t do it on Thursday for Friday. But a lot of work is not like that. Ideally, as you do your Friday planning, you should construct the next week’s work schedule so that everything you have committed to do for the week is done by the end of Thursday.

Plan for four days

So, if you have to write a report every week, get it done by the end of Thursday. If you have to check in with your clients once a week, do that by the end of Thursday. Anything that you have to do regularly should be finished by the time you end work Thursday afternoon or evening. If you’ve decided to tackle a certain project and finish a certain part as a weekly priority, get it done by the end of Thursday. That way Friday is actually, really open.

This does a few things. First, you have a buffer. When enough time is built in to do your regular work by the end of Thursday, then if anything takes longer for some reason, you still have Friday to deal with it.

If something big comes up during the week you also have time to deal with that and your regular work duties. The big thing might have displaced something from earlier in the week but there is space to get caught up on Friday. You weren’t counting on having that Friday for anything else.

That big thing could be a problem — an emergency you have to deal with — but it could also be something really cool. Maybe you get an inquiry about a really exciting new project or a client announces she’ll be in town and wants to meet. You can say yes knowing that any regular work duties that are displaced can be dealt with on Friday without borrowing time from the next week, which will no doubt have crises of its own.

Creating open space

Getting it done by Thursday also means that you have more mental space on Friday. Many of us claim we’d like to have more time to think. Friday can be that time. You can come up with ideas or think about how to do things better. You can reach out to people or maybe read that email a little closer and see that the person is suggesting something that might be really cool. You follow up and it leads to a great opportunity.

In a world where people feel starved for time, having some open space can make time feel luxurious. We feel time rich — but all it really takes to get to that state is making sure that whatever has to happen has a time to happen earlier in the week. Get it done by Thursday and you’ll find your work life in general feeling more productive, and less stressful.