Meetings with yourself: How senior employees can balance their time and minimize burnout

What got you here, won’t get you there. Blocking out time to think is key.

Once you reach a tech lead role and start taking on non-positional leadership (that is influencing those you do not manage), you will often need to be balancing manager time or time to do outward facing tasks with maker time or solitary tasks that must be done alone. Many software organizations call this a lead or staff position when you start being asked to work with other teams and leverage your experience into cross-team alignment. The problems are nebulous, complex, and can’t be summarized in a JIRA ticket.

Organizations can support this balance with a shared agreement for a no-meeting day. One company I have worked at called it No Meeting Thursday (NIT), but often one day is not enough, especially as your responsibilities grow.

At this point, your calendar may fill up with syncs, but you need to keep contributing to key areas–and writing, yes, you need to write and communicate your thoughts in an organized narrative that others will understand. Writing and editing proses will help you speak better.

How does one do that? Create ‘fake meetings’ or better said–’meetings with yourself.’

“After all– how does another person know which calendar item is important?”

I joke, but in reality most folks will hesitate to overbook an existing half hour meeting on your calendar. I mean how does one know which one is important? Large blocks are a little different, since it may be something optional that you were invited to and it may be worth the roll of the dice to another person to risk booking the time.

If you do use this technique, I would recommend keeping some regular times open for ad-hoc syncs.

Create your own boundaries that will enable you to flourish at your role. It’s not your company or your manager’s responsibility to do so.

How do you carve out time in your schedule to think and write?