When I left my last full-time job I immediately deleted my calendar.

One reason I left that form of employment was a desire to reclaim control over my time. Calendars represented to me an open opportunity for other people to dictate how they wanted me to spend my day.

Even in a blissfully meeting-free day at a relatively-chill startup there were still the implied book-ends of 10:30am-ish to 6pm-ish. There was no room to feed the inspiration I need to do my best work with nourishing hikes or daydreaming coastal drives.

Every time I found myself at a creative dead-end trapped in an office looking outside at a rare sunny San Francisco day outside I died a little.

Since leaving, I’ve done my best to be schedule-free.

Other than online classes and calls with friends & collaborators I intentionally keep my time wide open to do with as I please.

You know what? It’s not working!

Staying up until 4am jamming on art because I can means I miss the magic morning quiet hours where my creativity flows the freest, and leave myself exhausted and spinning up all day. Time is too precious to leave to chance.

Instead of working when I feel like it, now I design my day around my creative biorhythms: early morning deep work, late-morning convergence, lunchtime calls, afternoon daydreaming.

Intentionally setting my own schedule around my creative energy is the freedom I was looking for this whole time.