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Comment by joegahona | Hacker News Reader

> For those who use Google calendar as I do, a recently introduced feature allows you to set up focus blocks with the option to decline conflicting events.

I'd recommend against announcing that the meeting is being declined because of a focus block. Someone will read that as "free time" and demand you meet anyway. Put 3-4 fake "meetings" on your calendar during the time you need, so it just looks like you're booked. If your company requires you keep your calendar public, call the meetings something gross like "vendor review" or "Finance and Engineering Integration: Overlapping Initiatives" and nobody will question it.

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I think giving fake reasons, which is just systematizing and publishing dishonesty in the form of your calendar, is a bad strategy long term and could potentially have a serious impact on your reputation.

A generic, nondescript "Do Not Book" should be sufficient. If you feel the need to make up fake meeting titles then there is some broader issue that should be addressed.

I agree. However, if you're going to do Do Not Book, I'd say auto-decline in better. As I say in the blog, I usually see the decline and reach out to book a better time.

Yeah, if I want to join it's easy to say "sorry can't make it there, but I'd like to join, can we reschedule?"

Sure that's annoying to the organizer, but everyone understands that finding a time where everyone is available is annoying and hard. If it's really hard to reschedule, you'll find some solution. "Sorry I can't, how about xyz attends and you get together after?"

It's really not that hard.

I'm being hyperbolic and trying to add levity. My broader point is that I've experienced -- first-hand -- that some people don't respect "Focus Time" as a legit reason to miss _their_ meeting and inconvenience them to find a different time. They might not schedule over it, but they'll slack and ask you if you can join anyway, creating more speed bumps and awkward conversations. People generally don't slack you to ask "Can you miss your Vendor Review to come to our Marketing Brainstorm?" You don't have to go full-on deceptive and make up fake meeting names -- that was a bit of humor -- someone else on this thread suggested "Unavailable," which is probably equally effective.

I don't think it's dishonest.

The person is just communicating they have that time booked. If it takes a different form for people to respect that, so be it. The content is the same and truthful: that time is blocked.

I've yet to encounter this. I do get "Is it ok if I schedule over your focus time?" on occasion.

Being honest about it and up front with people creates an understanding. Some even ask how it's setup because they also want focus time.

Correcting misunderstandings isn't a huge burden, and if someone is DEMANDING you meet: There's a good chance it's actually important. Declining because "this can wait a day" helps set expectations that "I need to focus on my assigned work first".

Even better: let your manager know you're doing this, if they have your back. They can respond to complaints/inappropriateness of people complaining about you doing the work they want you to work on.

I like your last point. It makes me think of the book, Radical Candor!

I've read it. So that's a chance that's where I got it :)

Where I work only the availability is public, the actual meetings aren't. It's pretty common to block out time for "Focus" and similar (I saw it a lot when folks have their calendar open, in the old office days or when sharing the screen) and, as far as I can tell, very well accepted.

Possible that people would schedule meetings over "Focus" time, but since they can't see calendar details, they don't. If they did, I'd push back. (It's easy to see: "This thing is due on Monday, and that's the time I have to work on it. If you don't like that, take it up to my manager." But I don't remember it being an issue.)

I'm not sure if my boss can see my meetings, I never really wondered too much, but if he can he seems to be respecting intervals I block out with a "Focus" meeting very well, so no issue.

Your thing seems like lying to me...

In my experience, it's very common for people to not have any regard for existing meetings and schedule right over them.

I edited just before you replied, here's the relevant paragraph again:

> Possible that people would schedule meetings over "Focus" time, but since they can't see calendar details, they don't. If they did, I'd push back. (It's easy to see: "This thing is due on Monday, and that's the time I have to work on it. If you don't like that, take it up to my manager." but more diplomatically. But I don't remember it being an issue.)

However, you're saying people straight scheduling over other people's meetings generally? The only times where that happens to me are either:

1) I'm really non-essential, and more invited as a courtesy in case I want to join, or

2) this is really, really important, and we will work together to sort the scheduling out, including manager if necessary.

Otherwise, what else can they expect than me saying "sorry, have another meeting already"?

3) People add so many people to the meetings that it's never ever possible to find the same free block and so a certain percentage of people get scheduled over.

If others can't see calendar details, then I would use the "Focus Time" feature.

I can highly recommended not adding a reason at all for rejecting a meeting request. If I feel I do not need to attend at all I will let the organizer know. If the time conflicts with my schedule / plans I will simply ask for a reschedule. (And no, I’m not the CEO).

Yeah, I don't see why we need to play games - just say no. It's a normal human instinct to want to please others and say yes, but it can be short sighted as you will need to tell them that, no, you didn't finish that strategic project because you went to a lot of meetings..

Agreed. If you're an actual stakeholder whose input is required, the organizer will reschedule to ensure you're able to make it.

I also don't accept many meetings. I leave them as tentative, with the belief that my meeting time is based on priority, not first-come-first-served. This gives me flexibility to attend the meetings that I really do view as most important.

That definitely is an alternative and is something I used to do. The reason I like the focus time feature (if implemented the way I suggest) is that the goal is to instill this culture across the team so that it's more of a team/company culture and less of something that just you do.

I'd love to hear people's experience trying this out!

I do this regularly, and to the extent that I'm able I put the task in the description so that my team knows more or less what I'm prioritizing. You can also create recurring OOO and Focus Time events now, so I have lunch blocked off and 30min at the end of each day to prepare for the next. It's a secret super power to staying on top of things and creating rituals that help me sign off at a reasonable hour instead of sliding into unproductively and less time with family.

Really, my only gripe with Google Calendar at this point is that you can't define custom colors nor label those colors. I use that feature heavily now to give me an at a glance view of which projects or activities my time is going to on a weekly basis. The colors don't have consistency across months though because I have to re-use colors for different purposes.

The ability to create a recurring Focus Time event has been game changing!

Isn't the fact that nobody else is scheduled to attend those meetings an obvious signal of fake meeting?

Collaborate with like-minded coworkers.

Reading these threads, I'm either blessed working at a non-dysfunctional place, or people are exaggerating, or people are reading things into meeting invitations that aren't there? (For example, being invited to a meeting that you don't have to be there, but as a courtesy if you want to be there, so it did not take your scheduling into account.)

I’ve worked in places like this. You have to be careful what you push back on and how you do it. It requires a certain amount of political awareness and social skills.

Now that I have over ten years of experience and forced myself to learn how to handle conflict instead of avoiding it, this isn’t difficult for me.

Younger me didn’t know what to do.

In Outlook you can "invite" a bunch of people but save the meeting as a draft. It will block out the time on your calendar but not send the meeting invite out. For meeting location, just put "TBD."

Nice :) Thank-you. Do you have any Outlook automation workflows? Not Power Automate, but scripts to parse Outlook's equivalent of "mbox" and execute secret magic against.

That would be nice.

This is an oddly weird thing to be dishonest about. If anyone has an issue with me blocking some focus time to get things done, I'm happy for them to take it up with my boss, challenge my priorities and see what happens then.

“Unavailable” has been sufficient for me.

Use this one a lot. Really helps with having a disability. No one needs to know why I’m out.

> If your company requires you keep your calendar public

Find a different company. I have no idea how anyone could work in such circumstances. You're held responsible for getting your work done but others can schedule your time.

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