Did you know there was a universal sign for choking? There is, at least according to one of my former college professors. Early one morning in a class on emergency medicine he contended if you put your hands around your own neck, ostensibly chocking yourself, anyone in the world (perhaps the universe) would know you are choking and… Well unfortunately there is no universal response to seeing someone choking, so the outcome may not be what you were hoping for. You might ask why I’m sharing this cheery thought. I found myself thinking about signs a few days ago. It was after a conversation with a colleague of mine about managing a huge pile of work items during a very limited number of hours in the day. As we spoke it occurred to me that it was less likely that people did not care that she was “choking,” but rather they simply didn’t realize it. Was there a sign? Surely at least some of us might have offered her a metaphorical Heimlich maneuver, or at least some would care enough to stop bringing her more food to eat. So why then was she left to choke while we ideally sat by. Didn’t we see the signs? We didn’t, because they were not there.

Most of us have witnessed first-hand how effective a small sign can be to communicate a deliberate message. Despite the veritable parade of people wanting into my hotel room as I desperately try to sneak in another hour of sleep while traveling, each of them elect to be respectful of the small “Do Not Disturb” sign I hang on the door. It’s a simple arrangement we all enter into. I make the small effort to let them know my preference, and they are kind enough to respect my preference. How very decent of all of us. Yet as my memory of hotel stays past fades from memory, my colleague was still choking in diligent work ethic silence.

My colleague and I set out to create some signs for the proverbial hotel room door that was her work schedule. We decided to use Microsoft Outlook to manage our calendars, and Microsoft Exchange to covey to others our “free” and “busy” time signs. When people wish to, they can see our free or busy status before they send us a meeting request. That is a pretty clear sign, if only we would use it to the full effect possible. And while, as with choking, there is no universal response to seeing another’s free/busy information, most people would prefer to honor our signs and choose not to “disturb.” As we began our journey, our first task was to find a way of organizing the full range of messages we wanted to covey to others. Cleary the do not disturb sign can’t always be up. Occasionally someone else needs to get into your hotel room, or schedule some time with you — perhaps to assist with that slightly too big a bite of steak now occluding your wind pipe. We want to be clear in the messages our signs are conveying, and also ensure that sometimes the sign reads “welcome.”

The Beat of My Heart:

I use a “heartbeat” method of scheduling my calendar. Much like a human heart which must have various exertion periods of resting, filling, and pumping, so too do I have times when I am available, more protective, and entirely unavailable. For those who work with me regularly, I try to give them a repeatable and predictable heartbeat of the times that I will be happy to meet with them, and the times when I and my DND sign are out of reach. I also try and show them times that I am being protective of my time, but open to the idea that this time can be utilized if something seems very important to the requestor. Below are some examples of the signs I hang on my work calendar.

In my case, I am extra protective of my Mondays and Fridays. I mark each of those full days in Outlook as “tentative,” which is my version of a sign that would read “I would prefer you not ask for time” in that block. Yes, some people will ignore it, just as there will occasionally people who don’t care you hung a do not disturb sign on your door. They will even knock with extra fervor to ensure your non-distrurbable time is thoroughly interrupted. At least you learn something about that person through this process.

Monday-Monday: (A gratuitous esoteric reference to an old song by The Momma’s and the Poppa’s)

[Sign: Tentative] I use my Mondays to kick-start my week with some high-volume but easy “sorting” tasks; I look at my full week calendar and adjust for conflicts. I ensure that for each event that week I have completed or scheduled time for any necessary prep-work. Monday morning work is like stretching for me. By mid-day I want to feel in control of what is going on. I have a sense of what might “pop up” that week and what my game plan is to deal with them.

Fridays: (I will have to owe you a gratuitous esoteric Friday song reference)

[Sign: Tentative] I use my Fridays marked as tentative on my calendar to have priority meetings that could not be scheduled Tuesday – Thursday. I try to move multi-hour meetings, and/or brainstorm meetings to Friday, so I can feel the luxury to think only about the dialog in the room. I don’t want to be thinking about what is piling up in my Inbox, or the meeting tomorrow I haven’t prepped for.

I focus on two key goals for my Friday time. First is to look at my calendar for the following week. In particular I make my adjustments for the following Monday, so I’m not sending meeting changes last minute on Monday morning. Second is to leave quiet work time to see if I can make enough progress on my “plate” to enjoy the weekend.

Mornings:

[Sign: Busy] The middle days of the week are fair game, but they also have their signs. In order to ensure that I am not asking anyone to wait for a response from me which might be block their day, I schedule myself several quiet hours every morning. That is my default recurring appointment, and I only adjust it if I must. This is my rapid pace email time, and my time to take in and process long form written information such as reading articles and presentation decks people send me. In my case my busy morning time is generally 6am to 9am (or so), ideally quietly with my morning coffee. To any onlooker it is just another occupied block of time on my calendar. That time is marked busy, so if someone schedules over that time they at least had a clear sign that I did not consider myself available. Again we all know those who are indifferent to your choices and signs, but those anomalies are not the people you are trying to communicate with using your signs.

Evenings:

[Sign: Out of Office] I aspire to end my day at 4pm, which often means 5pm or 6pm before I leave the building. My goal for my evenings is to dedicate that time to my family. So the sign on my calendar to my co-workers is, “I’m not here, please don’t ask to keep me here during this time.” Do I stay later on occasion? Absolutely. But from 4pm through 7pm every night my calendar has an Out of Office recurring meeting entitled “Daddy Time.” My sincere thanks to most of you who help me respect that goal.

Fair Game:

[Sign: Free] You might have concluded that I don’t allow much time for people to schedule with me, but that’s really not true. Tuesday through Thursday, from 10am through 4pm is time when I am more than willing to collaborate. I let that time book as “busy” on a first-come, first-served basis. For most of us, however, we can’t just afford to lose that middle 18 hours of work time. Rather, we need to manage it just as carefully as our other blocks of time. Here are a few suggestions from my use:

Overruns:

Have a chatty manager, peer, or do you know how you can run on a bit too long with some people? Set up a shorter meeting (say 30 minutes), but schedule an overrun time in the following half-hour. That way you don’t blow your next meeting and you can enjoy the conversation you’re in, but can also share the sense of there being a limit to your/their chat time.

Travel Time:

No teleporter available? No, me either. When I do my week look ahead at my calendar, I often find I am scheduled to end one meeting in one location, and then in the next minute start a meeting in a distant location. Schedule that gap, even if it just means starting the next meeting ten minutes after the hour. Note that in my opinion trying to end early to travel has a very low success rate, but your mileage may vary. My preference is to leave a 30 minute scheduled gap, just like an overrun, so I can think through the last meeting, use the restroom, get a drink, and get my head ready for the upcoming meeting.

Lunch:

I’m a lunch eater, which not surprisingly means I would like time to get it and eat. Every few months I re-test the theory of scheduling or not-scheduling time for lunch on my calendar. The results are the same every time (which means I am exhibiting the very definition of insanity – trying the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result.) The obvious is the right answer here, meetings fill all gaps. If you don’t schedule yourself a few minutes for lunch, that time will show up as “free” and will be consumed (a small lunch pun for you) by others.

Special Blocks of Time for Projects

For those who wondered how I found time to write this, for the last hour my calendar read “Writing Time” – and I was busy. YOU are in control of (most) of your calendar, and you need to allocate time when you need to focus and make progress. Don’t be shy about it. Others who feel they need that time will ask, and you can then decide the level of flexibility you have. While I left this suggestion as the last of my list, it is quite easily the most important. Don’t wait until you are choking to put out a sign that you need to work quietly for a few hours. Everyone else feels at least essentially the same way. Maybe you will teach them something about time management that will help them as well.

My hope is that you will find some time to read through and even try some of these suggestions. Also see if you can see the signs that others are putting out.

Signs you Should Avoid

I should note that I was raised in Los Angeles, where one routinely sees a driver giving a sign to other drivers. Let me just say that this would be a very different blog if I were recommending you add that to your public communications repertoire. Let me instead offer you a link to an irreverent comedy bit of how a particular type of signs might make our lives with one another a bit less ambiguous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU4VL6jnJMA

As for this author, the calendar hung on my virtual office door now reads “Gone Fishin.” Hopefully the fish aren’t using Exchange.