Scheduling something optional? Stop reaching for Fridays.

This was once a good idea: you and your colleagues would set up an optional time to collaborate or just connect over something lighter. An ad-hoc game hour, or a lecture or an industry topic, or a happy hour, or a standing mastermind. If something came up, you could scrub. Folks appreciated the chance to decompress a bit before heading home for the weekend.

We should’ve caught on to this being an anti-pattern years ago; it should’ve been obvious when working remotely even pre-covid. The very things we’re describing as “optional” and “light” are often the third-quadrant work that we should be fighting to get prioritized ahead of the noise. But alas, when we as professionals want to schedule something that’s not immediately relevant to in-flight work, we still reach for Fridays.

You can trivially prove to yourself that this is a bad idea. Pick a thing you’ve been meaning to learn about in terms of professional growth. You’ve probably already got a handful of resources you’ve been meaning to follow up with it on–a course or a video or something. Block off half an hour at 3pm local on Friday to do it. And see what happens. How’s it feel? Are you able to attend to it in earnest? What do you feel compelled to do? What do you actually want to do?

When we schedule those third-quadrant things (including the social ones! connectivity is important!) for the end of the week, we’re choosing to deprioritize them. And when we do it for other people, instead of offering a nice way to wind down before leaving the office, either folks skip because something comes up, or we’re forcing them to choose between your optional thing and closing their laptop an hour earlier.

Author’s note: it’s been a while. Missed y’all. Stories to come; in the meantime, knocking the rust off these fingers will take a few days to weeks.