When seasons change, we tend to refresh our surroundings and outlook for the months ahead. It’s also a chance to review the workday calendar to make sure we are using time to its fullest.

“What would you do if you had one extra hour each day (or week),” asks Elisabeth Owen Hayes, an author and executive coach, in a recent SmartBrief article. “How will you make more time for deep work—or just to get the mundane things done? How will you refresh your calendar this season?”

Workplace calendars often are filled with back-to-back meetings, which can make it challenging to finish tasks or allow for strategic thinking. To clean up your calendar and make time, Hayes offers the following advice:

• Start with a look back at the previous two weeks and identify which meetings could be changed, either by shifting to a different form of communication like email or chat channels, shortening a call, or changing the frequency.
• Ask yourself questions like, “can the outcomes of this call be achieved over email, or is a more nuanced discussion warranted” or, “would it be more efficient to change this bi-monthly 30-minute meeting into a once-monthly 45-minute meeting?”
• With the answers in mind, implement changes across your calendar and assess whether the remaining meetings allow you to be your most productive self. For example, if you prefer to do more intensive, independent work in the morning, are there meetings you can shift to the afternoon?
• Empower yourself to reach out to colleagues and start a dialogue on any potential meeting changes, sharing with teammates that you’re trying to streamline your schedule for a more productive day.
• Next, Hayes advises carving out at least one two-hour block each week for continuous, focused work. Doing so will give you the space needed to dive into projects, uninterrupted thinking, and let creative ideas flow.

For more advice, read the article “Spring clean your calendar to find more time.”