Clockwise Setup for Engineers & Designers

As an Engineer or Designer, there’s a remarkable amount of stuff that gets in the way of doing your actual job. Chances are, you didn’t learn to code or design so you could attend standups, give status updates, or answer a PM’s “quick question” that turns into an hour-long discussion.

While we can't add more time to the day, Clockwise is here to help by automatically managing your calendar to optimize your meeting times so you have the maximum amount of time possible to focus on your work. 

If you spend 5 minutes configuring your Clockwise settings now, it can save you hours of time in the future. This guide will walk you through the 5 essential features for Engineers & Designers like yourself- all in less than 5 minutes. 

Before you begin, make sure you've downloaded the Clockwise extension (in Chrome or Firefox) and log in with your Google Workspace account.

Then, continue with the guide to follow the 5 simple steps to get the most out of Clockwise.

Step 1: Set your meeting preferences

Just because you work from 9am-5pm doesn’t mean that’s when you want to meet!

You can tell Clockwise when you like to meet by configuring your meeting preferences. You can use your meeting hours to help reserve certain hours of the week for focus time since Clockwise will avoid scheduling meetings outside of your meeting hours. 

1. Navigate to Your Ideal Day.
2. Begin by setting your working hours.

3. If you prefer different meeting hours within your working hours, uncheck the box next to My meeting hours are the same as my working hours.

   

Want to learn more about meeting preferences? Check out the article here. 

Step 2: Protect your time

Now that Clockwise knows how you like to work and meet, it can help you find long, uninterrupted blocks of time and will protect your time for deep work. To start protecting your time, you can turn on Smart Holds for Focus Time.

1. Navigate to Your Ideal Day.

2. Next, toggle the option for Do you need Focus Time to get things done?

   

3. Select your ideal Focus Time goal for the number of hours you need for deep work.
4. Continue adding other Smart Holds and adjusting the settings for lunch, travel time, and more. 

Try it now! Follow the instructions above to turn on Smart Holds and set your Focus Time goal. Then move on to learn how to free up more Focus Time. 

Want to learn more about Focus Time? Check out the article here. 

Step 3: Mark meetings as flexible

Not only can Clockwise protect Focus Time on your calendar, but it can actually help you carve out more of it with flexible meetings.

If you want Clockwise to find you more Focus Time or to resolve meeting conflicts, you can tell it which meetings are flexible to move. Then, Clockwise will reorganize your calendar once a day by automatically rescheduling flexible meetings to less disruptive times using your meeting preferences and your flexibility settings. 

Some meetings are naturally more flexible than others, and your recurring 1:1s with your teammates and direct reports are often the most flexible. By marking them flexible with Clockwise, you can stop wasting time resolving conflicts or trying to find the optimal times to meet. Plus, you can control exactly how the meeting should move with meeting-specific flexibility preferences.

To mark meetings flexible:

• Click into a meeting you want to make flexible (such as a recurring 1:1 event)
• Toggle on the setting that says Flexible Meeting.
• Adjust the settings to control whether it can move within the day or the week

• [Optional] Adjust the time window that this meeting should move within (only available on paid plans)

  

Let's try it! Follow the instructions above to mark your 1:1 meetings as flexible. Then move on to learn how to simplify scheduling. 

Step 4: Automate status updates

As remote and hybrid work becomes more of the norm, it’s hard to understand when your teammates are available and how to respect their boundaries. Using the Slack sync, you’re able to effortlessly set expectations about your availability with automatic status syncing. This will tell your team when you’re outside of your working hours, in a meeting, in Focus Time, out on lunch, or out of the office. 

1. Visit your Connected apps.
2. Under Slack click Add to Slack.

3. Confirm the connection, then set your preferences.

   

Try setting up the sync now and your teammates will then have better visibility into whether you're available or not. 

Step 5: Make time for lunch

It can be hard to find the time to eat lunch when you're busy, but no one does their best work when they are hungry! Let Clockwise automatically schedule dynamic lunch holds on your calendar so that you never have to sacrifice your lunch break again. 

1. Back in Your Ideal Day, click the toggle for How about having time for lunch every day?

   

2. Adjust the parameters to indicate the minimum amount of time you need and the window of time when it can happen.

Clockwise will automatically create a calendar event that corresponds to your lunch preferences.  These dynamic calendar events are updated in real-time as your calendar changes, so you can always have an up-to-date view of the time you have available for lunch.