Prevent Burnout by Scheduling Buffer Time in Your Calendar

Why your calendar looks full but still lies

There was a week last month where every day had solid blocks of meetings in my Google Calendar, back to back, straight through noon to 6pm. At first glance, it looked like I was busy (because I was). But here’s the messed-up part: I still ended up missing two deadlines, replying too late to an important Slack, and almost cried at a drive-thru because I forgot my wallet. That was the moment I realized… my calendar was full, but not functional.

The thing nobody tells you until it’s way too late is that scheduling meetings back to back is basically scheduling a panic attack. Especially if you’re the person who captures notes, sets follow-ups, or—bless your heart—has to work between the calls. You need buffer time. Not maybe. Not theoretically. Literally. Like 15, 30, sometimes just 10 minutes, on purpose, and built into your calendar as part of the schedule—not after the fact.

What buffer time actually means in real life

Buffer time isn’t breaks. It’s not lunch. It’s not your 3pm Pinterest doomscroll. It’s the 15 min you need after a meeting to send the recap while it’s fresh. It’s the couple of minutes that let you reset before your next call so you don’t show up looking dazed like you just got off a rollercoaster.

If I have a 1pm meeting and a 2pm call, but both go the full hour with zero margin, I 100% will:
– Forget what was said in the first one
– Join the second one two minutes late still typing notes
– Start making dumb mistakes at 3pm because my brain is fried 🙂

That’s what scheduling buffer time fixes. It’s not about *working less*—it’s about being smart with what your brain can realistically handle. I used to tell myself I could handle five meetings back to back as long as I had coffee. Honestly, I was just bad at time estimation and running on panic energy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Setting default buffer time in Google Calendar

This is one of those features that’s useful *only if you remember it exists*. In Google Calendar, you can set shorter default meeting times, which naturally creates buffer between blocks when people schedule with you. It’s under your calendar settings, but hidden-ish:

1. Open Google Calendar in a browser (not mobile)
2. Click the gear icon → Settings
3. Scroll down to *Event Settings*
4. Check the box next to *Speedy meetings*
– It auto-shortens events by 5 minutes (for 30-min slots) or 10 minutes (for an hour)

It doesn’t sound like much, but it helps. Meetings starting/ending slightly early is a shockingly rare luxury. This setting at least makes it possible.

But heads-up: this only affects *new events you create*. Recurring meetings, invites others send, or those you’ve already scheduled won’t magically adjust. That’s kind of a bummer. Especially if you’re dealing with imported calendars from previous clients or old events with reused links. I once migrated a batch of template calendar events into a new client calendar, thinking I was being resourceful, but completely forgot speedy meetings weren’t applied—and yes, the whole thing turned into a back-to-back mess again.

Fixing Calendly or booking tool time buffers

Honestly, booking tools will happily let you wreck your day if you set it up wrong. I didn’t understand this at first, but most tools like Calendly, Acuity, or SavvyCal have *two separate* buffer settings:
1. Time *before or after an event* (buffer so you can breathe)
2. Minimum scheduling notice (prevents someone from booking same-day surprise calls)

If you don’t set both, something always breaks:

I once had someone book me with 5 minutes notice because I forgot to set a minimum lead time. I was literally in the kitchen reheating tacos. No chance I was composed enough to give feedback about a job candidate.

Here’s what I do now in Calendly:
– Event duration: 25 min
– Buffer before: 10 min
– Buffer after: 10 min (yes, both, because someone might book back-to-back)
– Min range to schedule: 2 hours before

That at least gives me 20 min of space between calls and avoids the surprise “your meeting starts now” ping. Also important: set it per event type. Calendly loves to copy-paste settings across event types, but sometimes they randomly reset when you edit embed options or rename.

Fun fact: the buffer sometimes silently resets if you duplicate an event. I’ve had cloned events lose their buffer completely until I checked manually. So now I triple-check every edited link before posting it in Notion.

Using time blockers that include the buffer intentionally

Reserving time for yourself is honestly harder than defending a thesis sometimes. There are days when just adding a gray block to your calendar that says “Don’t Book Me” feels too aggressive. But you have to do it.

Here’s what I changed: instead of blocking an hour randomly labeled focus, I block 15–30 mins after big projects or meetings with labels that say what it’s actually for:
– Decompress after client call
– Notes + follow-ups
– Walk or stare at trees

Because here’s the truth: if you don’t name your buffer time, people WILL book over it. Especially if you’re using a shared team calendar or have coworkers who don’t understand what focus means (we all know that one guy who books every unscheduled block)

Color-code them too. I use a hot-orange label for “mental health” blocks—no one messes with those.

How automations can betray you by ignoring buffer

Let me tell you how one of my Zaps ruined my Wednesday.

I set up a “smart” automation in Zapier that copied new Calendly bookings into a Google Sheet, triggered a workflow in ClickUp, and sent me a Slack reminder. It worked. Until it didn’t. It fired three of them at once—with zero spacing—because I forgot that I’d removed the buffer while cloning the event type. This automation did not care. It triggered all three tasks like a machine gun.

What I learned the hard way:
– Zapier doesn’t check your actual Google Calendar availability
– It just watches for a webhook (when the invite gets created)
– If you forget your buffer, the automation goes wild

Now I add a manual filter step in Zapier that checks start time spacing. It’s not perfect, but it lets me kill overlapping events. You can also add a delay step if you know a particular sequence needs breathing room.

Another weird thing: if you’re syncing tools like Calendly → Zoom → Notion, buffer-less events get stacked in Notion even if they completely overlap in Google Calendar. It doesn’t know. It just adds them. So double-booking hell.

Screen fatigue is real even if you never leave your desk

People underestimate how much fatigue builds when you switch contexts too rapidly. Meetings zap you. Especially video ones where you have to focus on subtle gestures, fast back-and-forth, or ten tiny squares of semi-tired coworkers.

I started noticing that by mid-afternoon, my shoulders were tense, my jaw was clenched, and I wasn’t even sure what I had talked about in the morning. That’s not just stress. That’s what happens when buffer time equals zero.

After adding just 10–20 minutes between key meetings, I noticed:
– I remembered more things from calls without checking notes
– I was less snappy in afternoon emails
– I actually wanted to open my calendar next day 😛

Honestly, that last one is probably the most important.

When your buffer gets hijacked by other people

There’s a special kind of rage when you think you have a break and then someone books right over it. Happens a lot if you work in cross-functional teams or share visibility with others.

The fix? Use calendar privacy settings smartly:
– Mark buffer slots as “busy” even if they look like breaks
– Avoid using “free” for any time block unless you *want* it booked
– In Outlook or Google, you can add dummy events marked busy and titled vaguely like “Internal task review”

And if you’re in a situation where someone asks, “Can we move this up 15 minutes?” Try replying with, “Unfortunately I have a hard stop before that” even if it’s just your brain reload time. You’re allowed to protect your minutes.

Also, if you’re using shared calendars, check if someone’s auto-booking software is scanning your free slots. I once had an SDR team using Chili Piper that would snipe empty 30-min chunks unless I put fake events there. That’s when I started naming my buffers “Strategic development block” even if I was just watching a raccoon in the backyard.

The hardest part is defending your small gaps

All the tech helps—scheduling rules, automation filters, blockers—but there’s no tool that can say no for you. Only you can.

I still cave sometimes. I tell myself it’s just 10 extra minutes, it’s just one more call. And then I forget what the first meeting was even about.

So now I treat buffer time like meetings with my future self. She needs that time. She’s tired. She’ll thank me.

Trust me, the version of you at 3pm will be grateful you said no at 11am to one more Zoom link.

Leave a Comment