Time
The real length of a free evening
A ninety-minute gap on the calendar rarely means ninety minutes of work. Getting started and stopping both take time.
Boarding time
Opening the laptop, finding your notes, reading messages that arrived during the day. For many people this takes fifteen minutes or more.
Tying up
Saving work, sending a last reply, writing down where to start next time, then moving away from screens before bed. Another fifteen minutes.
Plan with the shorter number
If an evening gap is ninety minutes, plan for about an hour of real work. Promise clients what fits in that hour, not in the full gap.
Shorten the boarding
- Leave a one-line note at the end of each session saying what to do next
- Keep side-work files in one place
- Check messages once, at the start, not throughout