I hate meetings. So, naturally, I have to go to a lot of them. Oh, there are plenty of people who can beat my meeting schedule, but it's far more than I'm interested in attending. I used to have two meetings a week, and it made me crazy.
Now I average two meetings a day (some days more, some days less) and I can look back on those balmy days and chuckle at myself.
The worst of it isn't even that I have meetings. The worst of it is the way they're timed. I usually try to go to the gym around lunchtime -- ideally leaving around 11:30 and getting back to the office at 1, but anytime between 11 and 2 would be fine. But that's when all my meetings are bunched up. For some reason, there seems to be this popular perception that just before and just after lunch is a great time to have meetings -- which means that I've got days where my meetings end at 12:30 and start back up at 1. Or worse, end at 11:30 and start back up at 1, which makes it tempting to believe I might be able to run to the gym, but is such a tight fit that I can't know for certain (since a lot of these meetings have a distressing tendency to run long).
I swear, I'd rather have a 9:00 meeting, or even a 4:00 meeting.
I spent most of an hour yesterday fiddling with my schedule and trying to figure out how to rearrange things so I can fit in my three workouts each week, and my allergy shots (which have to be done at some time of day other than lunchtime, at least), and have the bare possibility of occasionally meeting Matt for lunch (per my resolution for the year -- but which has to be juggled around his meeting schedule, as well).
I think I finally managed it, but just about any interference -- irregular meetings, major deliveries, or school holidays -- are going to disrupt things and bump one or more of my gym sessions to the evening.
I'm trying to figure out if this will get easier or harder to manage as the kids get older. Then again, I'm having enough trouble figuring out the now -- maybe I should avoid thinking about the future until it gets here.
1 comment:
Liz, one strategy I have seen work (if your office actually looks at other people's calendars) is to schedule "non-meeting time" every day. I use it to keep my 8-9 window free so I can get started for the day, but I know other people who do it for lunch or other activities.
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