Baseball in its current form (“the modern era”) has been around for 124 years — hosting roughly 300,000 games.

Did you know that out of those roughly 300,000 games, only 24 have been perfect—meaning no batters reached base through a hit, walk, or error?

The point being, perfection is extremely rare. In this case, it’s around 0.008% of regular season games. And if we hold ourselves to a standard of being perfect, we will constantly set ourselves up for failure.

I’ve seen countless cases where a pitcher loses a perfect game or no-hitter, then gets rattled and gives up a run, losing the shutout as well.

Last week I told you how 2025 starts this month for me — it’s been a crazy year so far, and the weather is ensuring even fewer school days for my kids, making it crazier.

And while I’ve been able to get my most crucial work done, there’s still more I want to do — I just don’t have the space to do it right now; it’s being filled up by other, more important aspects of my life.

However, throughout the month, I’ve been compiling a list of automations I’d like to build, either for myself or as part of a live stream.

That list got longer yesterday, when I discovered Google Docs has added tabs.

So how am I supposed to manage this increasingly growing list of stuff I need to do, when things don’t appear to be slowing down any time soon?

There are a few ways.

Capturing Ideas Needs to be Easy

First, I’d have nothing to do if I forget my ideas, thoughts, or tasks. So idea capture has to be easy — and my system is pretty dialed in.

I have lots of voice memos that I sift through during my startup routine, and I keep a notebook handy if analog capture feels better.

As a result, I’m clear on what I need to do, I just need to make time to do it.

That’s where time blocking/boxing comes in.

Blocking Time on my Calendar

This week has been full of meetings because I completely blocked off last week to record my LinkedIn course. So I haven’t really had an appreciable amount of focus time.

This morning, I looked at the rest of the month and blocked off any remaining meeting-free days. Those days will be mine, and mine alone.

It’s also a good time to revaluate how folks can book time on my calendar.

Being Intentional About Meetings

Using a scheduling link makes scheduling meetings super easy — but the drawback is it’s a little too easy.

If someone knows the link, they can have seemingly unfettered access to your calendar. And while you ultimately have final say over if a meeting happens, it still creates a sometimes frustrating balancing issue.

Every six months or so, I do a gut check and ask, “Am I making myself too available?”

If I feel like over those months, I’ve lost control of my calendar, I make a change.

I did that in August after a particularly crazy summer where my calendar was too open. And I’m going to do it again.

Given that this week has been very disjointed by meetings, I will re-evaluate again. And I will carve out larger chunks of time for me, which means fewer meetings.

My Changing Role

This has me thinking a lot about my view of meetings and work in general.

As a programmer, meetings were anathema to me. Most got in the way of the “real” work I had to do. And while I took meetings that I needed to (like to define project scope, training, etc.), I avoided meetings at all costs.

But I’m a coach now. And the best way to coach people is through synchronous meetings. The best way to learn more about potential coaching clients is through discovery calls.

I once apologized to my therapist for putting an “extra” meeting on her calendar one week. She reminded me that as a therapist, the primary way she makes her money is “meetings.”

While I love to do deep, focused, uninterrupted work, I do need to realize that “too many meetings” is no longer a barrier to income — that in fact, it can be the primary way to generate income.

This makes automating and delegating my processes even more important.

I need to strike the right balance. That means experimenting a lot — which in turn means most of the time, I won’t be perfect.