Working in a distributed company means you have to be extra mindful of timezones. We use a tool called Clockwise that intelligently manages our calendars, finding the best time for everyone to meet and scheduling time to focus.

Clockwise's main features will empower you to:

• Understand how to optimise your working style.
• Lower the number of interruptions during the day.
• Find better times to schedule some of your meetings.

👷‍♀️ ****Setting up Clockwise

Clockwise is quite easy to install - just add the browser extension that's available for Chrome, Safari and Firefox.

This will initiate an onboarding process where you will be able to enter your information and preferences, so Clockwise can do its magic!

Don't worry, you can change all your settings after the onboarding process!

https://vimeo.com/637532810

Clockwise Quick Tutorial Video

🌳 Setting your preferences

To make Clockwise an effective tool to manage your calendar, we need to feed it with information on our working habits - working hours, meeting hours and breaks you need to take between consecutive meetings. You can access these options under Clockwise settings.

Setting preferences in Clockwise

Setting preferences in Clockwise

We suggest that you:

• Set the same working hours every day if possible. It adds a healthy dose of routine to your life, and it helps to create a hard line in your day when you can stop thinking about work and start focusing on other equally important elements of your life.
• Set meeting hours to the part of the day that you are usually less inclined to do focused work. This will not only increase your productivity, but also help you plan better - knowing which hours can be allocated to meetings and synchronous collaboration.
• Add breaks between consecutive meetings. This allows us to preform our own little Handoff for the meeting, close those "open loops" and get to the next one refreshed!

<aside> 💡 **3 simple ways to create a healthier workday

1. Build healthy habits into each day.** Need that morning workout or afternoon walk? Incorporate habits without restricting your schedule by marking holds as flexible and setting a dynamic time range. Learn more → 2. Protect time for lunch. Never go hungry again due to back-to-back meetings. Setup lunch holds that fit your schedule and preferences. Learn more → 3. Break up non-stop meetings. Get a breather on meeting-heavy days with our smart meeting breaks preference. Learn more →

</aside>

💡 Focus Time

In Clockwise, Focus Time is defined as at least 2 hours of uninterrupted time on your calendar that you can dedicate to working on your tasks and deep thinking.

When we are deciding on when our Focus Time will be applied on our calendars, we should:

1️⃣ Choose the time of the day when you prefer to have uninterrupted time for work. Pick times that work for your brain - some people do their best focused work in the mornings, some in the afternoons.

2️⃣ Choose how much Focus Time you would like to schedule per week.

3️⃣ Make yourself busy during Focus Time.