For the first six months of running YVO, my invoicing was a mess in exactly one way. Not the numbers — those were always right. The timing. Some months invoices went out within a day or two of the work being done. Other months they went out two, three weeks late, whenever I happened to…
Years ago, when I was doing web design work, I had a client who loved to send “quick questions.” A message about a font choice on a Tuesday morning. A call about a broken link on Wednesday afternoon. A five minute favour to check whether something looked right before they showed it to their own…
The week Amazon made my role redundant, I remember sitting down at my desk the following Monday out of pure habit, opening my calendar, and finding nothing there. Not one meeting. Not one call. After the better part of a decade managing teams and programs where my days were carved into thirty minute blocks back…
This week has been about self-leadership — the habits I model without meaning to, the standards I set just by repeating them. Today is the practical bit. Not another idea to sit with. One hour, one fix, done this week. Here’s what that looked like for me last month. I sat down and went back…
This week’s been about time — protecting space to think, and noticing how often a meeting is standing in for a decision you could just make. Today’s the practical part. Block one hour this week. No calls booked over it, no email open, phone in another room if that’s what it takes. Better still —…
When I got made redundant from Amazon after nearly a decade, the first thing that hit me wasn’t panic. It was quiet. For years my calendar had been solid blocks of back-to-back meetings — program reviews, team huddles, one-to-ones, engagement sessions. Suddenly all of that was gone, and in the space it left behind, I…
The simplest, most immediately actionable calendar habit for founders who want to protect their cognitive capacity and do their best work. Here’s a question worth answering honestly: when in your working week do you do your best thinking? For most founders the answer isn’t ‘during work hours.’ It’s in the shower. On a run. During…
A poorly designed calendar doesn’t just waste time — it generates cognitive drain before your most important work has even started. A few weeks ago I introduced the concept of Decision Fatigue — the well-documented cognitive phenomenon where the quality of our decision-making degrades progressively as we make more decisions across the day. Each choice,…
The gap between the priorities you say you have and the ones your calendar reflects is one of the most telling operational measures in any business. Here’s an exercise worth doing this week. Pull up last week’s calendar and look at it honestly. Not at what you planned — at what actually happened. Where did…
Your calendar is one of the most powerful leadership tools you own. Are you using it like one? Here’s a quick test. Open your calendar from last week. Look at it honestly. Is that a reflection of your priorities — or a patchwork of other people’s needs, last-minute requests, and things that felt urgent in…
