Your Calendar Is Lying to You: 5 Steps to Take Back Your Time as a Business Owner
If you’re running a $1M–$6M business, there’s a good chance your calendar isn’t helping you—it’s hurting you.
I see it all the time: business owners stuck in back‑to‑back meetings, putting out fires that aren’t theirs to fight, and solving everyone else’s emergencies because they haven’t built the processes or guardrails to step back.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if you’re always available, your team will let you keep solving their problems. But when you step away and create the right guardrails, you’ll find something surprising—the company doesn’t burn down.
It’s time to take back control. Here are five proven steps I’ve used for nearly a decade to help business owners reclaim their time and lead with clarity.
1. Turn Off Your Notifications
This may sound small, but it’s the most powerful first step.
Stop letting your phone and inbox control your attention. Turn off email notifications. Turn off social media pings. In fact, I haven’t had work email on my phone for nearly 10 years—and nothing has burned down.
Emergencies? Real ones get a phone call or a text. Everything else can wait until you’re ready to deal with it.
2. Audit Your Week
Pull up last week’s calendar and be brutally honest.
Which meetings actually needed you there?
Which ones could someone else have handled?
Which ones were simply a waste of time?
If a meeting has more than 15 people in it, you almost certainly don’t need to be there. And if it has more than four? Question it.
3. Block the Non‑Negotiables
Before you let your calendar fill with other people’s priorities, schedule your non-negotiables first.
Time for creative work
In‑person connection with your team
Personal priorities (family, health, thinking time)
This creates the foundation for a workweek where you lead proactively instead of just reacting to whatever hits your inbox.
4. Set Guardrails
Decide what your workday looks like—and stick to it.
I have two kids (with a third on the way), so when I close my laptop at the end of the day, I’m done. Unless it’s a true revenue‑impacting emergency, work stays at work.
Set boundaries for when you start, when you end, and how you engage. Your business will adapt—and your team will rise to the challenge.
5. Institute “Kill Zones”
This is one of my favorite tactics: identify the meetings and tasks that simply don’t need to exist—and kill them.
Sometimes you’ll need to temporarily over‑deliver (for example, running daily updates for 30 days after a key resignation) but then phase those things out.
The more you eliminate unnecessary noise, the more space you create for real leadership.
The Unexpected Truth
The more meetings you decline, the more gets done.
When you take your hands off every small problem, you create space for your team to figure it out—and they often rise to the occasion in ways you didn’t expect.
Try It
If you’re ready to reclaim your time, step out of the chaos, and lead with clarity, my 4‑week Leadership Reset program was built for you.
It’s designed to help business owners like you reset your calendar, restructure your schedule, and lead your company (and your life) with intention.
