An impressing meeting that affects the stability of other ongoing projects

The phenomenon that I am concerned here is a situation that happened with me many times. It’s when there is a meeting that enters my calendar and affects my other activities, for the day or even for the week.

These new events can be a project for a new customer, for example. It if was an emergency, it would seem acceptable. But it’s not. These can be happy events but still they seem to shake to the whole calendar.

I understand that this may not apply to everyone — someone producing steadily in a well-defined environment or an employee performing in a good collaborative environment. My situation is of an entrepreneur with the full control of the calendar. I am usually executing multiple projects that demand weekly updates. Some of them are related to writing, learning, and coding.

In terms of major categories I think that my agenda could be split into two kinds of activities:

• Execution activities — activities related to consulting. These are projects that pays the bills, for example.
• Design activities — some other strategic activities involving design and planning. I think that some of these will help me a lot to change my reality to better. This are projects related to achieving a better future, becoming a new person.

The activities that seem to be affected seem to be the ones related to the design, the strategic ones. Those that are about changes, that demands willpower and may involve a degree of learning and planning.

And the activities that seem to be taking space are ones related to execution. An example of an activity is a new consulting service — something that I know that I can do and that pays the the bills, for example. But then I notice that all other important strategic projects are left behind and it makes me frustrated with the accumulation.

This article lacks the reflection and analysis conclusion but you are probably guessing. It seems to be the case that design-related activities are punished because they are yet unclear and maybe because they demand more energy, such as planning energy or willpower.