Serguey Asael Shinder – IT Professional

For years I reviewed every line of code that tried to enter the codebase, and accepted almost every meeting that tried to enter my day without a second thought. It took me an embarrassingly long time to see the contradiction. My calendar was the real system — the thing that actually decided what ran each day — and I was leaving it completely unguarded.

An unprotected calendar doesn’t stay empty. It fills, quietly and inevitably, with other people’s priorities. Their syncs, their check-ins, their “quick” thirty minutes that cost an hour once you count the climb back to focus. I’d reach the afternoon having attended my whole day and built none of it, and I couldn’t quite say where it went.

So I started treating invites like pull requests. Does this meeting have a clear purpose? A decision it exists to make? If not, I decline it, or I ask what it’s for. And I block the deep work first — before the day has a chance to claim those hours for something shallower.

It felt rude at first, saying no to things that seemed reasonable in isolation. What changed my mind was noticing that a merge needs a justification, and so does an hour of my one finite life. The bar shouldn’t be lower for my time than for my code.

I don’t manage my focus much anymore. I manage my calendar, and the focus follows.

– Serguey Asael Shinder