Stress. So. Much. Stress. As I write this toward the end of March 2026, something I've been experiencing more than I ever have before is a lot of stress. But the stress isn't about school, my job, or anything like that. It's about something I've historically been pretty good at: Productivity and time management. For months now, I've been struggling to keep up with my calendar. It feels like a constant game of Jenga, trying to move little blocks around to make them all fit together just right. A never-ending battle to find the perfect schedule and perfect system to maintain it. The number of times I've played calendar Jenga this year is countless. Some days, I win and make it all work. Other days, the tower falls over, and I end up ignoring my calendar completely. The lack of consistency has only compounded my stress and frustration. Earlier in this book, I mentioned how having some structure in my day is essential. I shared how having long stretches of empty space on my calendar was leading to anxiety and less productivity because I didn't know what to do, and it led to decision fatigue. At the time, I shared how there's power in having anchors in your day, such as meetings and puppy commitments, to help keep things grounded. Taking this one step further, in one of my previous books, I wrote about the importance of replacing to-do lists with time-blocking. Every task should have a place on your calendar if you actually want to get it done. As you can probably guess, my opinion on all this has changed slightly. Don't get me wrong, I still believe in the power of having anchors built into your day in the form of meetings or hard commitments, but I've come to appreciate the power of keeping empty space. The best way to win at calendar Jenga is by not playing the game at all. As 2026 has taken shape, I've been desperately trying to find a system to help keep me organized. My first realization of using meetings as a tool, rather than seeing them as an enemy, was a profound shift in my mindset. After years of treating meetings as the worst thing to exist on planet Earth, I've come to appreciate how much balance they bring me. If I have a meeting on my calendar, I'm much more motivated to plan my day around it and make the most of my time. I especially love having meetings in the afternoon when my energy naturally dips. I'm not being too productive during those hours anyway, so having something that forces me to show up is actually a net positive. In addition to this, the new realization I had this month has been around the topic of what to do between meetings. When I talk about playing calendar Jenga, I'm actually not referring to meetings. Meetings are like the Jenga blocks that can't move and have no flexibility. The blocks I've been playing Jenga with are my tasks: optional things I need to do but can choose to do whenever I have time. Since these blocks are so flexible, I find myself moving them around on my calendar all the time. And what's worse, when the time comes to start working on one of these tasks, my headspace usually isn't there. I'll just ignore it and tell myself it will get done another time. This has had a disastrous effect on my calendar because I start to lose trust in what's on it. So what's the solution? The point of time-blocking your entire day was to eliminate decision fatigue. But if you don't follow through with your time blocks, you lose trust in your system and feel more stressed as a result. Something's got to give. Productivity and time management are such personal things. As you can see, my journey with them has changed on a month-to-month basis. What works for me might not work for you. Heck, it might not even work for me a few weeks from now. But as of right now, I think I've figured out a system that I can take with me into the foreseeable future. A system that has flexibility, but also some rigidity, which provides enough structure to keep things going. Last week, I went through my calendar and did something important. I deleted anything that wasn't a 100% must-attend meeting. The result was a calendar filled with commitments I know I can't miss. No optional fluff. No flexible blocks. The only appointments I was left with were work meetings, client therapy sessions, and classes, all of which I cannot move around. On top of this, I went through all my tasks and stopped trying to assign them to specific days. Instead, I began assigning them to a week. I even marked tasks that absolutely must get done during the week with a higher priority so they show up as red. Everything else doesn't need to have a hard deadline but would be nice to get done. Now, my system is simple. My calendar contains events I must attend. There's no ambiguity about where I need to be at a certain time. The blank spaces represent time I have to work on things. And instead of trying to pre-plan when I work on certain tasks, I open up my list for the week and pick something that I feel like working on. This aspect of being able to work on whatever I "feel" like was the missing piece I was searching for. The reason why my Jenga tower kept falling over was because I kept trying to enforce a schedule on myself. When the time comes to work on something you assigned to yourself but really don't feel like doing, it has a detrimental effect on your mindset. You feel guilty for not doing what you said you would do, and everything starts to fall behind. Now, having options makes a world of a difference. There's enough planning in place to provide me with a shortlist of high-priority tasks, but there's enough freedom to choose from a variety of options. And the fact that I can differentiate must-do/attend versus optional has also been a profound shift in my system. Like I said, there's a very real chance none of this will matter a few months from now. Perhaps I'll find a different way that works better. But at least for now, this seems to be the solution I've been needing since the beginning of the year. I'm optimistic it will help relieve some of the stress I've been experiencing. --- Related Notes: - [[Lessons From 2026]] This note was originally created on **March 26, 2026**.