Carolina de Arriba

You go from creative thinking to responding to emails, to a meeting, to deep work.

Each switch is costing you.

Research shows that it takes about 23 minutes on average to fully refocus after an interruption.

So if you're switching contexts every 30 minutes, you never actually get into deep work.

Your move here, well, look at your week.

Where can you batch some similar tasks?

Can you do all your meetings in two days instead of spread it across five?

Or can you consolidate them in a certain timeframe during the day?

Can you batch all your admin work into one afternoon block?

Try it for a week and see the difference.

Rule number three, the sandwich strategy.

This is a big one.

If I have a draining meeting or a tough conversation, I don't schedule it in isolation.

I sandwich it between things that energize me.

Here's what I mean.

Let's say that I have a difficult performance review at 2 p.m.

I know that's going to drain me both emotionally and mentally.

So I design it around before it, I do like a 15 minute break where I can go for a walk or move my body or ground myself or set intentions for the meeting.

Something that energizes me and puts me in the right headspace.

And then right after the meeting, I schedule lighter tasks, maybe some admin work, maybe checking emails, or maybe just working on a project that I enjoy, something that doesn't require heavy lifting.