Why Your Calendar Has "Free Time" But You Don't

You've been told to leave white space on your calendar, right?

Don't book every minute of your day. Keep some breathing room. Leave yourself open time.

So you do it. You're diligent about not overscheduling. You look at your calendar and see those beautiful blank spots.

But then the end of the week rolls around and you're thinking, "Wait. I still didn't get everything done AND I didn't get any time for myself. What happened?"

I'm seeing this happen over and over, especially with women trying to implement planning systems that weren't designed with our reality in mind.

The problem? You're actually lumping four different types of time into that white space without even realizing it. And until you understand what those four things are, you're going to keep feeling like your free time is vanishing into thin air.

1. Stop treating buffer time as white space

Let's say you need to work on a task. You block off an hour, but you're thinking, "Hmm, I'm not great at estimating. I'll leave some white space after it in case it takes longer."

Sound familiar?

But when you see that white space on your calendar, your brain registers it as "extra free time I'm going to have." And if you're constantly consuming it because you underestimate how long things take, you're never actually going to have free time.

The fix? Block off the amount of time you need, including your buffer. If you think something might take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, block off an hour and a half. Period.

Think of it like budgeting for groceries. We don't know the exact dollar amount we'll spend each month, but we know the range. So we earmark our worst-case scenario. If we spend less, awesome! We have extra money. Same with your calendar. If you plan for 90 minutes but finish in 70, now you truly have 20 minutes to do whatever you want.

2. Actually schedule your personal time

A lot of women think, "I'll just leave white space on my calendar and when it hits, that'll be my personal time."

Nope.

Because you haven't labeled it as personal time, 99% of the time you're going to go straight into productivity mode. That white space from 1 to 2 PM? You'll instantly start thinking, "Okay, what do I need to knock out?" Before you know it, you're doing things for other people, tackling cleaning tasks, or jumping into work for the next day.

I block off my cello practice time on my calendar. That's an appointment with myself. Because if I don't and I just think "I'll get it done sometime during the white space," guess what's not happening? Cello practice. Someone will ask if I'm free at 1 PM, I'll see white space on my calendar, and there goes my personal time.

You need to actually put the time on your calendar that you're reserving for yourself. Label it. Protect it. Prioritize you.

3. Plan for uncertainty (with actual blocked time)

No matter how well you plan your week, things are going to come up. You can't predict the future, and unless you can shut out the entire world, new stuff is going to pop up that you need to handle.

Think of this like your emergency fund with finances. You might need new tires, your hot water heater could go out, your roof might leak. You put money aside every month so when an emergency happens, you're not going into debt to handle it.

This is what I call your uncertainty budget for time. And you don't leave white space for it. You actually block it off.

Right now during my working time, I know I need about four hours each week to handle things that are going to come in that I don't know about yet. So I block and protect those four hours as my uncertainty time. My emergency fund.

When something pops up during the week, I can move things around and lean on those four hours. But I'm visually capturing that time because I know I'm going to need it.

4. Understand what true white space actually is

After you've blocked your buffer time, your personal time, and your uncertainty time, what's left over is true white space.

Think of this as fun money. Slush fund money. You don't know exactly how you're going to spend it, but when the opportunity arises, it's there and you can use it guilt-free.

Real white space is when you have an open chunk of time and you can actually decide in the moment how to spend it without feeling guilty about it.

If you can't do that? If every time white space appears, it's being consumed by something else? It's because you're lumping all four of these categories together instead of treating them as separate buckets.

Ready to reclaim your actual free time?

Let's be real. When push comes to shove and you're short on time, what's the first thing you let go of? Personal time. Time for yourself.

We all do it. It's instinctive.

This is exactly why personal time in particular needs to be clearly labeled on your calendar.

So tell me: which of these four categories have you been accidentally lumping into your white space? And what's one change you're going to make to your planning this week?

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Friend, don’t forget—just 15 minutes of planning today can set the tone for your entire week. You’ve got the tools, you’ve got the tips, and now it’s time to take action. Let’s crush this week together!