
Show HN: We built a thing in Google Scripts that audits your calendar every week - reclaimai
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vihyV1lnO-aNrt20nZexCufaX4Gtl6D0yE03E5PwGfk/copy
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modo_
Really like the premise of this! But, as an individual contributor with hiring
/ leadership / planning responsibilities, I found that a lot of my highest
priority work actually happens in the time between my calendar events.

The structure of this tool makes me think there should be a 1:1 mapping of
hours worked to calendar events. Maybe it's a better fit for someone with the
"manager's schedule" [1], or maybe you all do a better job of blocking out
time for individual work on your calendars?

I see a lot of value in a tool like this though! The calendar rebalancing I
frequently find myself doing is grouping like meetings (stacking interviews
back to back) and maximizing the duration of meeting-free blocks of time
(putting as many meetings on Monday as possible to free up later days in the
week). If this could happen without me thinking about it I'd love it!

[1]
[http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html)

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reclaimai
Thanks Modo_!

This is definitely oriented a bit more around "manager's schedule" (we love
that PG post too and are building Reclaim with the manager in mind) and the
idea that in addition to the "in-between" time you mention (i.e., "Working",
"Focus Time", etc.) managers tend to need high-quality meetings and events
that serve their priorities.

Per your point, you could definitely map "working" or "blocked out" time to
priorities. Doesn't have to be a meeting, but by having your free time
actually represent a concrete objective, we've found it makes it less
interruptible by your peers.

Paul Monteiro has a great post about this concept of mapping events --
regardless of whether they're meetings or not -- here
([https://medium.com/@monteiro/the-chokehold-of-
calendars-f70b...](https://medium.com/@monteiro/the-chokehold-of-
calendars-f70bb9221b36)) and we did our own take on it here
([https://blog.reclaimai.com/posts/2019-07-16-is-a-busy-
calend...](https://blog.reclaimai.com/posts/2019-07-16-is-a-busy-calendar-
bad/)).

Thanks much for commenting and providing feedback!

Henry

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reclaimai
Hi folks,

As a super early version of our product (reclaimai.com), we put together a
Google Script that will dump out your upcoming week of calendar events into a
spreadsheet and gives you tools for mapping how much time you're spending on
your top priorities each week. It's been a great weekly planning ritual for us
over the years. We'd love feedback on the approach and -- of course -- if
you're interested in Reclaim, give us a shout.

Thx! Henry and Patrick

