Make time before the day fills

Block time for the Highlight first, so it isn’t left to leftover scraps of the day.

Why it works

Important-but-not-urgent work has no deadline forcing it, so it loses to reactive demands unless it’s given time before the calendar fills. Proactively blocking the Highlight reserves capacity in advance, converting "if I have time" into a concrete commitment that the rest of the day must work around.

How to do it

1. As soon as you pick the Highlight, put it on the calendar.
2. Place it at a high-energy time, ideally early before interruptions mount.
3. Treat the block as fixed and schedule reactive work around it.

Evidence

Pre-committing time to a specific task is an implementation intention, robustly linked to follow-through; the "before it fills" logic reflects the mere-urgency bias toward reactive work. (rct)

The scheduling effect is well supported; combining it with the Highlight is a sensible design choice rather than a separately tested intervention.

Sources

• Gollwitzer & Sheeran (2006), meta-analysis of implementation intentions, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

Common mistake

Leaving the Highlight for "later in the day", when later reliably gets eaten by meetings and messages.