Here is another valuable Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review. To sign up for a free subscription to any/all HBR newsletters, please click here.

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If your calendar is like most, it is packed to the gills.

Between regular, mandatory meetings, meetings you or your boss calls, and interactions with customers, there can be little time to think or plan.

This means that high-priority projects often end up getting the short shrift. Instead of figuring out what on your calendar can go, start over and build your schedule from the ground up.

Figure out how much time the most important projects need and block it off. You may not know now how you will use that time now but if you don’t save it, you’ll lose it.

Then, add in mandatory meetings that have value, such as decision-making meetings or customer visits.

For those recurring meetings that don’t make the cut, ask yourself whether they need to happen and you have to be there.

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “Is Your Calendar Managing You?” by Ron Ashkenas.

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