Will Sansbury

WILL SANSBURY

People-focused Leadership for Product Management and Design

Will Sansbury is an experienced product leader who loves helping teams create products that matter. He is all about putting human beings first, building supportive team cultures, and sharing what he’s learned along the way.

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Time to Blow Up Your Calendar
Productivity

Time to Blow Up Your Calendar

Declaring calendar bankruptcy every now and then is a good thing.

Posted January 26, 2023 by Will Sansbury

On Attics and Assumptions: The Hidden Cost of Inaction
Making Great Products

On Attics and Assumptions: The Hidden Cost of Inaction

Buying our first house was a dream come true, but it quickly turned into a costly lesson about ignoring problems. What we thought was an insurmountable expense turned out to be a simple solution, teaching me the importance of recognizing and challenging limiting beliefs.

Posted August 9, 2016 by Will Sansbury

Pee, Poo, and Unintended Consequences
Leadership

Pee, Poo, and Unintended Consequences

When my son gamed our potty-training system to maximize cartoons, I realized something: measuring the wrong thing drives the wrong behavior. The same is true in software development—if we focus solely on output, we risk missing the outcomes that truly matter.

Posted August 25, 2014 by Will Sansbury

Design Is About Process, Not Heroics
User Experience

Design Is About Process, Not Heroics

While most people settle for the first workable solution, designers dig deeper, exploring a multitude of ideas and embracing risk. This is their superpower.

Posted April 13, 2014 by Will Sansbury

Tension Is To Be Loved
Making Great Products

Tension Is To Be Loved

The tension between designers, developers, and product managers often feels like a struggle for dominance—but what if that tension is the key to building great products?

Posted December 8, 2013 by Will Sansbury

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Time to Blow Up Your Calendar
Productivity

Time to Blow Up Your Calendar

Declaring calendar bankruptcy every now and then is a good thing.


Will Sansbury
Will Sansbury
Time to Blow Up Your Calendar
Posted January 26, 2023 by Will Sansbury

January is almost over! Have you had a chance to reset your calendar for the new year yet? If not, consider this your cue to evaluate every recurring meeting on your schedule to determine if it still holds value for you. If a meeting no longer serves its purpose or provides significant value, don’t hesitate to cancel or decline it.

Next, designate specific time slots for unscheduled thinking and doing. Block these periods in your calendar as sacred moments for focused work and creativity. Arrange other meetings around these blocks to create a well-thought-out and intentional weekly schedule. (I protect two full days every week. Seem extreme? Maybe, but research from MIT [link in comments] suggests it has a profound impact on productivity. Anecdotally, I can tell you it is also good for stress and morale.)

Lastly, take a moment to review any meetings on your calendar that lack clear purposes and agendas. Now is the perfect opportunity to clarify objectives and ensure that everyone attending knows the purpose of the meeting.

It’s your calendar. Make it work for you.

Will Sansbury
Will Sansbury
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Related Articles

Productivity

“Be quick, but don’t hurry.” —John Wooden

Everybody wants to move fast. Certainly, some self-sabotage by weighing themselves down with unnecessary bureaucracy that accumulates as they scale. They accidentally create an environment that won’t permit speed. But in my experience, that’s not the most common cause of systemic failure to deliver. Most failure stems from trying to go faster than you can […]

Posted February 11, 2025 by Will Sansbury
Productivity

Nobody Will Protect Your Focus For You

I rarely disagree* with Harvard Business Review. But then I read this: A meeting-free day or even half-day may be your ideal, but you may never have this type of time. Waiting for a slice of project nirvana keeps you from getting started when you can. A better approach is to accept and work within […]

Posted June 5, 2024 by Will Sansbury