Your Calendar Is Your Battle Rhythm

Leaders often schedule meetings. The best leaders schedule thinking.

This week marks the anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy.

Every year, the anniversary causes me to think about time.

Not just the passage of time, but how we choose to use it. As I prepared remarks for my retirement ceremony, I found myself reflecting on a simple realization:

You stop counting deployments. You start counting birthdays. You stop counting assignments. You start counting anniversaries. You stop counting promotions. You start counting moments.

And that's when you realize that how we use our time ultimately becomes our life.

Two leadership thinkers capture this idea well:

My friend Jamie Efaw observed that if you want to know what someone prioritizes, don't listen to their words, examine their calendar.

Joseph McCormack's work on Quiet reinforced a second lesson: If thinking is important, it must be protected.

I have found both observations to be remarkably accurate.

For years, I paid close attention to how leaders allocated their time. Eventually, I began applying the same principle to myself. Not perfectly. And certainly not early enough.

Date nights with Renee went on my Outlook calendar. Travel to children's events went on my Outlook calendar. Grandchildren's activities went on my Outlook calendar.

Not because I needed reminders. Because I needed visibility. If family mattered, family deserved protected time. I also wanted my teammates to see that protecting time for family wasn't just acceptable—it was important.

I began protecting blocks of quiet time as well. Very early. Sometimes ridiculously early.

No meetings. No calls. No interruptions.

Just time to think, read, write, solve problems, and make sense of complexity.

The same lesson applies to organizations. If innovation is a priority, leaders must protect time for innovation. If reflection is a priority, leaders must protect time for reflection. Otherwise, urgency consumes everything - the Tyranny of the Urgent is real.

This idea eventually became part of my thinking on organizational effectiveness. An organization's battle rhythm is not simply a meeting schedule. It is a statement of priorities.

The same is true for individuals. Our calendars are battle rhythms for our lives. They reveal what we value. They expose our tradeoffs. And over time, they shape who we become. The attached photo includes three generations of my family at my retirement ceremony. Looking at it, I am reminded that calendars and battle rhythms ultimately lead somewhere. They become relationships. They become memories. They become a life.

The heroes who landed on the beaches of Normandy understood something many of us eventually learn: Time is finite. The question is not whether we are spending it. The question is whether we are spending it well. Take a look at your calendar. What does it say about your priorities?

Would the people you love agree?