Show HN: We built a thing in Google Scripts that audits your calendar every week
docs.google.com
docs.google.com
The structure of this tool makes me think there should be a 1:1 mapping of hours worked to calendar events. Maybe it's a better fit for someone with the "manager's schedule" [1], or maybe you all do a better job of blocking out time for individual work on your calendars?
I see a lot of value in a tool like this though! The calendar rebalancing I frequently find myself doing is grouping like meetings (stacking interviews back to back) and maximizing the duration of meeting-free blocks of time (putting as many meetings on Monday as possible to free up later days in the week). If this could happen without me thinking about it I'd love it!
This is definitely oriented a bit more around "manager's schedule" (we love that PG post too and are building Reclaim with the manager in mind) and the idea that in addition to the "in-between" time you mention (i.e., "Working", "Focus Time", etc.) managers tend to need high-quality meetings and events that serve their priorities.
Per your point, you could definitely map "working" or "blocked out" time to priorities. Doesn't have to be a meeting, but by having your free time actually represent a concrete objective, we've found it makes it less interruptible by your peers.
Paul Monteiro has a great post about this concept of mapping events -- regardless of whether they're meetings or not -- here (https://medium.com/@monteiro/the-chokehold-of-calendars-f70b...) and we did our own take on it here (https://blog.reclaimai.com/posts/2019-07-16-is-a-busy-calend...).
Thanks much for commenting and providing feedback!
Henry
As a super early version of our product (reclaimai.com), we put together a Google Script that will dump out your upcoming week of calendar events into a spreadsheet and gives you tools for mapping how much time you're spending on your top priorities each week. It's been a great weekly planning ritual for us over the years. We'd love feedback on the approach and -- of course -- if you're interested in Reclaim, give us a shout.
Thx! Henry and Patrick