At Your Best: How to Get Time, Energy, and Priorities Working in Your Favor

by Carey Nieuwhof

Everyone’s calendar looks different, but before you set up yours, I’ll share a few examples of priorities I fix in my Thrive Calendar: I spend my first hour every day quietly, sipping hot tea, reflecting, praying, and reading Scripture. For me, that’s the building block of my life, so I write it into my calendar. I save my mornings for things that I’m best at and that energize me—writing, thinking, strategizing, planning. But mostly writing. I block off some evenings and weekends for personal and family time. I keep Fridays free of scheduled meetings so I can finish projects, dream a little, do some errands, and on good weeks, take off early. Meetings usually have to fit into designated slots in the afternoon or late morning once I’m out of my Green Zone. I set a maximum number of meetings every week (these days, it’s fifteen). Exceptions have to be just that—exceptions for critical reasons.