You don't have to take the first time offered

Be a little more strategic about your schedule

Lately I’ve been scheduling a lot of physical therapy appointments. Since I work for myself, I have a fair amount of flexibility. But I’ve quickly realized that a 10:00 a.m. appointment means I will lose almost all of my morning — which is my most productive time of the day.

So if I am offered the morning on any particular day, I generally ask if there is anything available for mid-afternoon instead. There often is — and so I am glad I asked.

No harm in asking

While I recognize that many people don’t have during-the-day flexibility for non-work matters, this same phenomenon often plays out with meeting requests. Sometimes people feel obligated to accept a meeting request at whatever time is offered, even if the time is difficult or at least non-ideal. The thinking is that if there’s no actual conflict, there’s no good reason to refuse an offered time.

But guess what? You can rethink this notion. You want to be considerate of others’ schedules, but that doesn’t mean you need to say yes to a particular time because you are, technically, free.

For instance, if a colleague proposes a meeting at 10:00 a.m., but you were planning to buckle down on a big project that morning, it’s okay to ask if he’d be available in the afternoon or on another day. Maybe he won’t be (perhaps he’s buckling down in the afternoon!) but maybe he is available, or doesn’t feel strongly about it. There’s no harm in asking.

Even if you’ve generally been meeting at a certain time, you can suggest another. Maybe your 11 a.m. Friday meeting with a particular team means you’re always running late to another team meeting at noon. If there’s no good way to speed up the 11 a.m. one, then you can float the idea of moving it. You never know — perhaps at least one other person in the crew doesn’t like that time either.

Everything is a negotiation

In any case, wise time managers are strategic about their schedules. I appreciate when people make various options available (as some medical providers do with online scheduling, or as people do with Calendly or other scheduling software) but scheduling is often a negotiation.

Before you go into any scheduling discussion, think about what would be best for your schedule, what might be doable, and what would just be a bad idea (e.g. a toddler doctor appointment at 1:30 p.m.).

You might not always get an ideal time. But generally, the people who want to spend time with you for professional or personal reasons are not out to hijack your schedule. Many people have at least some flexibility in their own schedules — perhaps more than you assume. You can look for times that work well for both of you.