Finding Calm in Chaos

Let me tell you about my relationship with my calendar. It's more committed than any of my past relationships. Every morning my alarm rings at 4:30 AM and my calendar takes over at 5:00 AM; it loyally buzzes to remind me it’s time to go to the gym – or as I like to call it, "struggling through pure, unadulterated, agony."

As someone responsible for projects spanning multiple engineering teams across different time zones, you might think I'm drowning in chaos. And you'd be right – except I've built myself a very organized life raft. This isn't a prescription for how you should handle stress. Rather, it's a peek into how one particularly neurotic tech lead maintains sanity through the power of excessive organization.

The Art of Time-Boxing Everything 

Yes. Just about everything.

My calendar looks like a game of Tetris played by a perfectionist. Every block is precisely sized and accounts for nearly every minute of my day: deep work (do not @ me time), meetings (or as I call them, "opportunities to practice maintaining a neutral face while someone shares their screen for 10 minutes trying to find a document"), self-care (therapy), gym (see agony), and meals (which I routinely eat during meetings because people schedule over this block regularly).

Notes or It Didn't Happen

My note-taking system would make a librarian gasp in horror. They are line items and paragraphs scrawled on a legal notepad with either of my two favorite pens (my Zebra Sarasa or my gifted Montblanc Meisterstück). Every meeting, casual conversation, and random thought gets documented, tagged, and generally has some arrow pointing to another note relating to it. I have notes about my notes. I once spent three hours writing a document about how I organize documentation. It was a low point, but at least it's thoroughly documented.

Some people count sheep to fall asleep. I mentally run through my day, recollections of standup, and then re-read The Manager’s Path until it lulls me into blissful nothingness. It’s beautiful, calming, and reminds me of karaoke (iykyk).

The Morning Ritual

My morning routine is scheduled down to the minute:

4:30 - Wake up, check Slack and Teams

4:45 - Breakfast

5:00 - Gym

6:45 - Shower

7:00 - Review notes from yesterday and look at schedule

7:15 - Pet cat

7:30 - Start work

Is this level of structure necessary? Is getting up at 4:30 a questionable decision? It’s probably not for everyone. Does it make me feel like I have control over at least one part of my day before diving into the beautiful chaos that is my day? Absolutely. Yes. Even my cat and I have a scheduled morning routine (his fault, not mine).

The Evening Wind-Down

By 8:30 PM, my laptop closes. Non-negotiable. This is when I transition to my evening routine of teeth brushing, skincare, some reading in bed, and more cat time. It’s important for me to set a time for this, because I really need to be asleep by 9:30 PM. I’m bi-polar, and sleep hygiene is one of the most important aspects of managing my mental health (along with diet, exercise, and of course, making sure I take my medication).

Why This Works (For Me)

Here's the thing: this system isn't about productivity. It's about creating predictability in an unpredictable role. When you're juggling multiple priorities with dependencies on multiple teams, each with their own deadlines, dependencies, and dramas, having a structured personal routine becomes my anchor.

This hyper-organization isn't about controlling everything – it's about acknowledging that while I can't control when production decides to have an existential crisis, I can control when I eat lunch. And sometimes, that's enough.

The Plot Twist

The irony isn't lost on me that I deal with stress by creating what might seem like more stress. But there's something deeply comforting about having every hour accounted for, every task categorized, every project documented. It's like creating a map for navigating chaos.

Is this system perfect? Far from it. Does it sometimes crack under pressure? Like a junior developer's first production deployment. But it's my system, and it helps me stay grounded while juggling the countless responsibilities of technical leadership.

So here's to all of us who find peace in planning, serenity in spreadsheets, and calm in color-coded calendars. We might be a bit peculiar, but at least we know exactly when and for how long we're allowed to be.