Years ago, I made a rule about my work/life balance: my work calendar, an Exchange asset, would not be integrated with my personal calendar. Since then, I have never formally added my work calendar to my phone. It’s been available via the Outlook app if I really needed it, but that app is sufficiently mediocre that it kept me from launching it regularly. I also kept a pretty rigid habit of completing tasks — practitioner’s notes from appointments in particular — before my hard-stop departure time. The most significant benefit from those decisions has been that, outside unusual circumstances, I have been able to appropriately compartmentalize work.

Last week I changed not only my academic unit affiliation on campus, but my entire portfolio of work. It’s a career-altering change, and with it has come a new set of mores & obligations. The structure of my work has also changed. I’ve switched from a practitioner-based work day of appointments to a much less structured day that revolves around projects & meetings. With a less-structured calendar populated by more infrequent meetings, I can entertain the idea of adding my work calendar to my phone. Nothing in the new gig demands a break with this precedent. There simply are (at least) two significant efficiencies potentially to be realized:

  • Having that calendar feed into OmniFocus would make that app the canonical reference of my daily tempo & ongoing projects — no more checking OmniFocus and Outlook.
  • Being able to quickly glance at this information while on my commute, during a meeting, or as I walk across campus is enticing.

But — this is definitely breaking precedent, so I’m not inclined to be hasty.