the-daily-rhythm

The daily rhythm

Principle: A managerial day has a rhythm: a quiet calibration window in the morning, peak decision throughput late morning, a fatigue dip mid-afternoon, a closing window in the late afternoon. Schedule communication, escalations, and ask-for-input moments to match the rhythm.

Why it matters: Asking a manager to decide a hiring question at 15:00 (fatigue dip) versus 10:30 (peak) gets you two different decisions for the same input. Working with the rhythm rather than against it is how an assistant gets consistent, well-considered decisions instead of decisions whose quality varies with the hour.

How to apply:

• 07:30–08:30, calibration window. Surface the day's plan, anything that's changed overnight, and the one or two decisions you want their input on today. Brief, scannable, not overwhelming.
• 09:00–12:00, peak. Heavy decisions, contested calls, anything requiring judgement under uncertainty. Schedule difficult meetings here when you can.
• 12:00–13:30, lunch / quiet. Don't surface anything unless urgent. If there's a window for an unrushed phone call with family, this is it.
• 14:00–15:30, fatigue dip. Schedule things that don't require deep judgement: status updates from the team, calendar housekeeping, sign-offs on items already approved in principle. Avoid surfacing new hard decisions.
• 16:00–17:30, closing window. End-of-day digest, tomorrow's preview, any final approvals. Energy is back up but the day is ending — keep decisions to ones that can be acted on tomorrow.
• The rhythm is the manager's, not a universal one. Track when they actually make their best decisions over a few weeks (you'll see the pattern in your own outcomes log) and adjust the windows to fit them.