Meetings in the Morning, Panic Attacks at Night? Try This Instead

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Meetings in the Morning, Panic Attacks at Night? Try This Instead

Real-world tactics from a marketer & startup founder for anyone juggling calls, clients, and chaos.

I know a guy with a “superpower.” He could be in a Zoom meeting, debating a task with a teammate IRL, and answering DMs at the same time. Yeah, it annoyed people. But that wasn’t the real problem. After a while he started getting panic attacks. One morning he was packing for the office in Tel Aviv—and then took the next flight to New York just to clear his head.

My own story: once I switched to remote work, I basically stopped leaving the house. I was always “doing something,” and my work-life balance just… snapped. Not just me—lots of people I know hit the same wall.

So let’s talk about staying focused, protecting your energy, and not going off the rails. Let’s roll.

#1 Plan Your Work (So Work Doesn’t Plan You)

Obvious truth: we live in constant stress and uncertainty. In a single day, a swarm of tasks lands in your lap—at totally random times.

You start your day, sit down to do Task A… then a boss or client drops a “super urgent” Task B. You abandon A, jump to B. Then another client pings you with Task C. By 6 PM you’re wondering what you even finished. Sound familiar?

That’s how most of us operate. And it’s a trap.

Recommendation #1: plan your entire week in sprints and stick to it.

If a task shows up mid-week and it wasn’t in the sprint, either:

it goes to the backlog for next week, or
something already planned gets swapped out to make room.

You’re making your life predictable. Predictable = calmer brain = better work.

How to Build Your Sprint

At the start of the week, distribute tasks across days. Add deadlines. Prioritize everything.

Sometimes Monday you don’t know the whole week yet—fine. Plan what you can, then add as you go. The key move: when a new task hits, don’t grab it instantly. Open your task board (HustleApp—or whatever you use), find a slot in the sprint, and schedule it. Boom: a system, not chaos.

#2 Prioritize Like a Pro (The Uncle Ben Matrix)

Weekly planning gets 10x easier when you layer priorities on top. You know what to tackle first and what can safely wait.

My golden rule:

If a task can be done tomorrow, don’t do it today.

Common anti-pattern I see: teams rush to ship more stuff faster, then you look up and wonder why social graphics are done two weeks ahead while the website that needs ads tomorrow still isn’t live. Priorities = upside down.

You’ve heard of the Eisenhower Matrix. Cool. I also use the Uncle Ben Matrix (yes, that Uncle Ben): with great power comes great prioritization.

Here are the two big levers:

1) Money

Tasks closest to revenue are top priority. Could be your money or the company’s. Ask: Which task creates the most immediate value—cash, leads, sales? That one wins.

2) Urgency

Deadlines matter. In a sprint, first slot the tasks that are both closest to money and closest to deadline.

If the most urgent items don’t lead to revenue, renegotiate. We never look at tasks in a vacuum; we look at them in context. If you’re choosing between a pitch deck for a key client or a cute holiday card—ship the deck. The card has a crisp date, sure, but the deck closes a deal.

The Three-Ping Rule (for Nobody-Asked Tasks)

Some tasks are foggy: unclear owner, fuzzy deadline, no money attached. You start, burn time, and the requester forgets they even asked.

Use Three Pings:

First ping: log it to the backlog the first time it’s mentioned.
Second ping: bump it in backlog if someone asks again.
Third ping: only then pull it into the sprint.

If it doesn’t survive three taps, it probably wasn’t worth doing.

Quick Detour: Skills You’ll Need to Make This Work

1) Learn to renegotiate timelines.

You prioritized, scheduled, and something has to drop? Tell the requester it’s moving to the next sprint. This is how you avoid “we tried to do everything and delivered nothing.”

2) Ask the magic question: “When?”

Deadlines are the backbone of a real plan. With teammates, clients, everyone—use the right flavor: “When is it due?” vs. “When will it be ready?”

3) Outsource when you should.

If a task is not your lane or you’re at capacity, don’t white-knuckle it. Delegate. Yes, it costs money. It saves your sanity (and often nets out positive).

#3 Design Your Day (So It Stops Fighting You)

A prioritized weekly calendar is great. Next: build your daily flow so you don’t burn out from the meetings-tasks-meetings blender.

Heads-up: this won’t fit every CEO or fire-fighting exec. If your day changes every 15 minutes, frameworks bend. But for most freelancers and operators, this works.

Rule of thumb: split your day into two blocks.

Deep-work block: no calls, no meetings. Only production: writing, campaigns, QA, editing—your “hands-on” work.
Meeting block: stack your calls here.

This kills the constant context-switching tax.

Choose morning or afternoon for deep work based on your energy. Personally, after a few calls, my brain is cooked and every task takes 2–3x longer. So I ship work in the morning, take meetings after lunch. Your mileage may vary.

Can’t get a clean split?

Worst case is a chessboard: 1 hour call → 1 hour work → 1 hour call → repeat. By the time you unwind from a call, your solo work slot is gone.

If you can’t cluster everything, at least batch light: e.g., 2 hours of meetings together, then 2 hours of focused work. Not perfect, but miles better.

Uncle Ben’s Bonus Tips

1) Kill Notifications (Ruthlessly)

You planned the day, you’re in the zone—then ping ping ping. Angry client here, teammate there. Every alert steals focus.

Solution: turn off everything. Keep only VIPs on. And yes, I mean Slack, WhatsApp, email—everything.

To avoid withdrawal, check messages on intervals:

5 minutes after each completed task, or
once every 1–2 hours.
You control attention; attention stops controlling you.

Email pro-move: unsubscribe from all non-system emails. Your future self says thanks.

2) Delete Social Apps from Your Phone

Spicy take, but it’s the most effective way to stop doom-scrolling. Not forever—just relocate socials to your tablet or laptop and set a time window. Your brain: “ahh, oxygen.”

3) Do a Digital-Detox Day (Seriously)

In Judaism there’s Shabbat: from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, you don’t work. Why I love it:

All week you’re juggling fires. When Shabbat starts, I mentally pack the problems into a black bag and toss it until Sunday. On Saturday I avoid news, skip calls, and switch off mobile data. The first times feel weird—“what do humans do offline?” Then you remember books. Take a walk. Your system resets. By evening you actually want to work again. It’s a full battery reboot.

(Not religious? Do your own version. The principle is the same.)

4) Add a Reset Ritual

I have a simple habit: 30-minute walks morning and evening. It separated “work” from “life,” like a commute without the commute. Movement + head-clearing = magic.

These days I take short reading breaks —2–3 chapters and my brain reboots.

Choose any healthy switch-up; the key is a hard context change to release pressure.