Seemingly innocent, 1:1s are disrupting your productivity.
Everyone struggles to schedule their one-on-ones, and it doesnât get any easier as your team grows. Finding the perfect time for both sides of the meeting is a battle, but keeping to your one-on-one's on a regular basis is an important part of building a team.
Often, we fall into the trap of scheduling a one-on-one on a new hireâs first week, which works initially but turns into disruptive, poorly-timed events in the future. For managers, those âquickâ meetings end up sprinkled through the week, leaving no time to get any actual work done.
There are better ways to schedule those one-on-ones, which helps make keeping to them less of a burden. Here are a few of our favorite ways to get the most out of yours and wrestle your Focus Time back.
Left alone, one-on-one's quickly disrupt every day of the week, but for managers, doing all of them in a single day reduces mode switching and helps get more done.
When youâre doing thirty-minute sessions at sporadic times, the impact of disruption on your productivity â and that of your team members â goes beyond the meeting. Studies say that it takes an average of 23 minutes to return to productivity, so fragmenting meetings over many days can suck up hours in mode-switching alone.
By stacking your team catch-ups into a single day or afternoon, you can reduce the time you lose through mode-switching over the space of the week. Stacked 1:1s allow managers to work through each one with the right mindset, taking notes in-between, and reducing the cost of switching tasks.
This method only directly considers a managerâs calendar but helps keep one-on-ones as a regular habit, just by getting them done all at once.
If youâre able to find the time to plan for the week ahead, another great way to keep on top of things is taking a moment to look at your calendar every Sunday night or Monday morning and arranging events for the best possible time.
This usually means stacking all of your meetings on a single day to get more done, or ensuring that theyâre only occurring during allocated âmeetingâ times when theyâre least likely to disrupt your focused work time. Some managers choose to allocate mornings to meetings and afternoons to other work, while others find it easier to get into their focused time first-thing in the morning.
Cleaning your calendar in this way takes proactive attention on a regular basis, and schedules tend to change every week, so youâre not addressing the problem of those sneaky calendar changes during the middle of the week.
But, actively arranging your days ahead of time makes it easier to reject disruptive meetings and more mindful of your time. This is time-consuming and requires commitmentâ while only addressing your side of the scheduling.
The pipe-dream for managers is to get their calendar on autopilot, optimizing for minimal disruption on both sides.
Clockwiseâs âAutopilotâ feature can help with that. It moves your one-on-ones around in the calendar dynamically, accounting for how disruptive the meeting is for both sides. By looking at both calendars, itâs able to choose the best time for both sides without ending upright in the middle of the afternoon.
For those with highly-focused jobs requiring âdeep work,â this can help your employees immensely. Reducing fragmentation of attention and allowing your team to stay in the âzoneâ without interruption helps them get more done. Managers benefit, too, by finding more time to truly get into focus time at their desk, and work through their other tasks.
Autopilot moves meetings to a slot that will reduce context switching and avoids placing them in your optimal focused work time. We're always checking to make sure the meeting isnât interrupting your âFocus Time,â moving it to the next-best slot if either side is double-booked.
Your 1:1s might fall in a different time-slot every week, but are always placed at the best moment for both sides without manual calendar shuffling. Itâs meeting bliss, without the hassle.
You can learn more about Autopilot and how it can help organize your schedule here.
The most important thing you can do for your own workday is taking control of how calendar events and âmeeting madnessâ before itâs too late. Paying attention to your own focus times, scheduling meetings in blocks, or even putting them on autopilot can help.
We believe the key to effective 1:1âs is keeping to them on a regular basis, so your team knows thereâs a safe place to talk to you. Taking control of when theyâre scheduled makes this much easier if you start today!