In our daily life, we see a few people who are highly busy. They can’t give you time because they are booked with many other priorities. On the other hand, you will see a few people who will not allow you time, always, but for something really important they are always available. Why does it happen like that?
To be available for the important task, you must be unavailable for most of the tasks in your daily life. If we say YES to the most of the request, we have to say NO to most of the importance. Notably, after COVID-19, the way of availability management has been changed. Before COVID, I believe around 98-99% of the meetings used to be done in person, with an emphasis on the physical presence of the participants. But after COVID, the whole system was converted into a digital platform. Previously, if you were physically present in a city, but a meeting was being held in another city, you were not supposed to join over Zoom, Google Meet, etc. But now, your physical location is no longer a hindrance to joining a meeting anywhere else in the world. Even in a few cases, maybe you are available for an overseas meeting, but not for a physical meeting in your physical location because your availability has been booked for that overseas meeting before. Maybe the physical meeting was more important and value-adding for you.
So, to summarize, manage your availability very consciously. Don’t say yes to everything. Be sure that you are not missing something important. Saying NO to less value adding task is actually keeping buffer for the more value adding task.