Mastering Availability: The Art of Negotiating Your Time

“Whoever runs your schedule is the most important person in your world as Leader. You need time to think, time to study and time to get the things done you came to leadership to do. Lose control of the schedule and you will fail.”

That is a quote from former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. And it strikes at the heart of mastering time management. Today’s episode explores why your calendar is your most important productivity tool. 

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Script | 373

Hello, and welcome to episode 373 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.

Whoever controls your calendar controls you. They can (and often will) destroy your plans for the day, prevent you from doing your most important work and be the reason you fail in your career goals. 

If you are a leader, you will likely have plans for your team. In order to implement those plans and move them to completion, you will need time. It’s up to you to find that time. 

Top leaders understand this. They are very strict with their calendars. Nobody but themselves has control of it. And, probably the most important factor of all, they have the confidence to cancel appointments if those appointments do not align with their weekly or daily strategic plan. 

And yes, it’s a confidence thing. Nobody, not even your boss, really has control over your time. You always have the option to negotiate an appointment or say no. 

In this week’s episode, I will share some ideas you can use to get control of your calendar and have the confidence to negotiate appointments and/or say no.

So, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. 

This week’s question comes from Karen. Karen asks, Hi Carl, I lead a team of sixteen people and am struggling to get my work done because my boss and team are always demanding meetings with me. Do you have any tips on protecting time for important work when you don’t have control of your calendar?

Hi Karen, thank you for your question. 

This can appear to be a difficult change to make. Particularly if your team and bosses have become conditioned to you being available whenever they need you. 

One of most powerful lessons I learned in my early career was from the so—called “my office door is always open” concept. For those of you not familiar with this concept, it began in the late 80s or early 90s (possibly earlier). This was where bosses used to tell their employees my office door is always open. You can come and talk to me at anytime. 

Nice concept. It gave the impression that your boss was approachable. Yet in reality, it was not really a practical way to operate. 

It meant that bosses were constantly being interrupted—well, those that we not scary, anyway,

The two most productive bosses I had in my early career did follow this policy, yet with one addition. That was to tell us that when their door was closed they were not to be disturbed. 

One of those bosses, would close his door every day around 2 pm. He would then use that time to get his most important work done. David, had a secretary, who would hold his calls too. If you needed David between two and four, you had to go through his secretary, Michaela and Michaela protected David’s time ruthlessly. 

Yet, for the other times in the day, David was available. He’d walk around the office from time to time asking if we were okay. He made himself available. 

What happened, was if we needed David for anything, we knew we had to catch him before 2 pm or wait until after 4 pm. 

I don’t recall anyone complaining. The Managing Partner of the firm respected it. And so did David’s clients—he was a partner in the law firm I worked at. 

The key to this working was David’s consistency. His team, bosses and clients all knew that David would not be available between two and four. 

Since then, every productive person I have met, has operated something very similar. They have periods of time in the day where they are not accessible. In that time they are doing their most important work. That period of time is generally at the same time each day. 

I remember, once being on a training course and the instructor, told us she would be available at any time after 11:00 am if we had any questions. 

That’s it. A simple sentence. “Available at anytime after 11:00 am”. I don’t recall any one of us on that training course ever trying to contact her before 11:00 am. 

Now, it might not be possible for you to cut yourself off from the outside world at the same time each day—although we all do this when we are sleeping and the world doesn’t end, does it? 

A lot of this depends on the job you do. I’ve mentioned before in this podcast the best salesperson I’ve ever worked with, Claire. 

Claire would never be available between 9:00 and 10:30 am. It was during this time she was on the phones prospecting and following up customers. That one strategy was the difference between her and every other salesperson in that company. She outsold her nearest colleague two to one most months. 

We worked a nine hour day in that sales job, and Claire was unavailable for just ninety minutes. She was in charge of her diary. That still left her with seven-and-a-half hours where she was available. 

So, Karen, the place to begin is to ask yourself how much time do you need each day to stay on top of your work? 

Given that a managerial role is largely about communicating with a team and bosses, you will likely need to be available most of your working day. Yet, you will still have some individual work to do. So, how much time do you need to complete that work each week? 

You will only be able to work with averages. You will not be able to be specific about how much time you need each week. You’re human. Sometimes we are on fire and can plough through a lot of work. Other days, we’re tired and anything we do is sluggish and slow. 

By working with averages, you’re still getting work done and when you are on fire you can catch up. 

For instance, on average, I need around 14 hours a week to create my content. This means each day I protect two hours for content creation where nobody can interrupt me. I then have an extra hour or so in the afternoons I keep flexible for finishing off any work. 

I allow no more than twenty one hours of meetings each week. 90% of the time that is more than enough for the meetings and coaching sessions I have each week. 

I know if I allow more than 21 hours, the additional admin cost and lost time for critical work will mean I have to work late nights and Saturday just to catch up. Not something I am prepared to do. 

Earlier, I alluded to “negotiating” appointments. 

Imagine you’re in the market to buy a Rolls Royce car. (I said imagine). If you call the Rolls Royce dealership, you’re going to have to negotiate a day and time. The “sales process” for buying a Rolls Royce is not your typical process. It’s an experience. 

You’re not just buying a typical car. These days, you’re buying a unique bespoke car. The salesperson you talk with will need time to go through all the panelling options, Exterior colours and interior seat fabrics, and even the type of material you want your dashboard made from. 

The person you speak with when making your appointment, will negotiate a time to visit the showroom. That’s part of the experience. 

Now if you were in the market to buy a Ford, Toyota, Hyundai or VW, and call to make an appointment, you can name your day and time. The salespeople will very likely accept your first day and time. 

Now which experience would leave you feeling special? 

If you think about your readiness to accept any appointment at any time, what does that say about you? 

Negotiating your appointments elevates your status in the mind of the person wishing to make an appointment with you. The harder it is to get an appointment with you, the more likely you will have a favourable outcome. It’s the “you must be important if it’s difficult to make an appointment with you”.

Try getting an appointment with Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai or Satya Nadala. It’s not that they don’t do appointments, it’s just they restrict the number of meetings they are available for each day and the meetings they do attend must count. 

So, if you protect 9:30 to 11:00 am each morning, if someone wants to have a meeting with you during that time, you would say could we meet at 11:30 am instead? 9 times out of 10 your suggested time will be accepted. If not, the person wanting to meet you will likely suggest an alternative time. 

If you cannot find a suitable time, then you will have to use your protected time. But with this strategy, it will be very rare that you need to do that. 

I promise you, if you do this a few times, your confidence will rapidly improve and you will find that your focus time blocks will be protected. 

The challenge we all face today is we feel we must be available at all times for whoever wants to communicate with us. If it’s not Teams or Zooms calls, it’s instant messages and email. The trick is to become less available. 

Be like the Rolls Royce salesperson. Make getting an appointment with you part of the experience. If it’s a little harder to get an appointment with you, the person you’re meeting is going to be much more open to finding a solution with you there and then, instead of scheduling another meeting with you to “sort the details out”. 

Ask yourself, what the worst that could happen if you “negotiate” with the person wanting to meet with you? The worst is they refuse your suggested time and insist you meet them at their preferred time. At that point you can accept. 

Yet, I can promise you, the majority of people you negotiate times with will accept your time. The time they chose was completely random anyway. No matter who they are, your boss, your most important customer or whatever, they will thank you for taking the initiative and suggesting a time. 

I will end with a recent example of this. I am in the process of changing my car as the lease on my current one is expiring in September. We called the dealership to arrange a test drive in a car I was interested in, and the sales manager informed us that this week they were fully booked up, but they had an opening on Thursday or Friday afternoon next week. 

I was both impressed and relieved. Impressed because he did not jump at the chance and suggest we come down that afternoon or tomorrow. I had a sense of scarcity. Relieved because he took the decision for making the appointment out of our hands. 

We arranged 1pm the following Thursday and when we arrived, the car was on the forecourt ready and waiting for us. A very impressive experience. 

So, there you go, Karen. Don’t be afraid to negotiate your appointments and meetings. Build confidence in negotiating interruptions from your team and protect sufficient time for getting your core work done. 

Thank you for your question and and thank you to you too. It just remains for me to wish you all a very very productive week.