“Catch Up Days” and Time for Joy & Play

A common theme in my coaching sessions with higher education professionals is scheduling.  While planning out tasks and blocking calendar time is not a technical skill, adhering to the time planned for a to-do task often seems to require some kind of divine intervention—especially when that task has to do with research, writing, or time for yourself. While they’re not magic—exactly—these few lesser-used but highly effective tips for building in “catch up days” can feel like just the blast of magic we need to maintain balance.

The Impact/Effort matrix is a tool developed for our  Associated Colleges of the South Mid-Career Advancement Pathways Program (ACS MAPP) cohorts.  Many have found spending 5-10 minutes with the matrix useful in their prioritization efforts, especially prior to committing to a project. Then, consider these tips for building your “just right” schedule:

• Scaffold larger projects, breaking them down to the smallest possible achievable steps.  If you don’t already, practice adding these tasks to your calendar.  Tasking up your days can feel overwhelming to some—to others, it’s more like what Atul Gawande avers in The Checklist Manifesto: not having to think about what to do next frees your brain up to actually do the thing.  All your executive functioning energy is available for the task at hand. Gawande insists that: “under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, they are required for success.” 

• Adjust time expectations. In our Write Now! Program kick-off, we guide participants in assessing the everyday complexity of their current semester—both personally and professionally.  Awareness of what’s really needed and practice at estimating task duration can help reduce unnecessary stress and amplify calm. Be ready to adjust when you can.  Case in point: your ice-laminated hilly, driveway requires parking on the street in our recent wild weather weeks. This small change increases departure time and introduces a whole host of other factors which require more time than usual to navigate your commute safely. I’m not suggesting we pack more into our days or live tethered to our schedules, but rather betting on the hypothesis that when our time expectations align with our lived experience we are more likely to reduce everyday stress. 

• Build in catch-up time in your scheduling.  Many of us schedule “catch-up days” on our syllabi—why not also include them in our lives?  There are any number of unpredicted bids for our time, energy, and attention—so many, in fact, that it is impossible to predict them. It’s counterintuitive to schedule a a time block for an unspecified activity, since we typically start planning schedules with the question  “what specifically do I need to get done in this time frame?” Experiment with scheduling a catch-up hour or two a week.  Call it something fun or meaningful for you. Some folks who have instituted this have found that having that time already saved reduces time concern at other times during the week. Taking longer than anticipated to grade essays?  Is one of your children or your entire household under the weather? No stress.  You have your catch up time to…well…catch yourself up.

And what do you get for all this investment in self-scheduling?  Hopefully time to play in whatever way that makes your heart smile (these teaching joy cards may help in that department!)  And what better way to play than with colleagues in community?  I recently learned of the Serious Play conference to be held on August 5-7, 2026 at Duke University.  Are you interested in playing? Drop me an email ([email protected]) before February 12th and we’ll organize a group to take advantage of the group registration rate.

If you’re interested in confidential individual coaching with the FDC, please request an exploratory session online.