The Calendar Is Killing Your Peak Performance Moments

But Athletes Have An Answer

Are you doing your most important tasks during your most productive work hours? Probably not. That is because we are generally overwhelmed by the routine, struggling to self-certify ourselves as performers based on the number of hours put in at work. The reality is that we can achieve much more if we admit the limitations of our body and mind, and synchronise our work schedule with peak energy levels, as is done by top athletes.

From my early days at CreditVidya (CV) to its acquisition by CRED, a consistent theme struck me that senior executives were perpetually busy. It was difficult to find meeting slots, be it for pitching sales or presenting to investors. But these meetings felt like they determined my future. I remember countless gruelling acquisition negotiations stretching late into the night. We live in a work culture that celebrates busyness. By that yardstick, I was destined to succeed. But there was no measure for the effectiveness of my effort, and my future was actually being decided on depleted cognitive resources.

Most senior leaders face similar endless to-do lists and too little time, leading to overscheduled calendars. I've seen people boast about "cognitively productive" meetings and brainstorming sessions late into the evening. Yet, we rarely question the actual "productivity" of a culture that glorifies "hours." We've all heard Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy's declaration: "Our youngsters must say 'this is my country; I want to work 70 hours a week'."

This may have worked at a certain time, in a certain context. Not in the wasteland of the 21st-century startup ecosystem.

The Forced Pause

When COVID hit, like many companies, especially in lending, we too struggled. People had no money. Everything PAUSED. This gave me a chance to observe, to notice patterns and countless trends that made me question everything:

• Townhalls scheduled post-lunch, with half the team visibly dozing.
• Heavy working lunches where people struggled to stay alert during critical discussions.
• 6-10 PM brainstorming sessions that produced mediocre ideas compared to morning meetings.
• Important investor calls scheduled at 4 PM when everyone's energy had crashed.

In every case, a question haunted me: Are we actually productive, or just busy?

I started scrutinizing the typical executive calendar:

• 9:00 AM: Team standup
• 10:00 AM: Client presentation
• 11:00 AM: Strategy brainstorm
• 12:00 PM: Working lunch with investors
• 1:30 PM: Product review meeting
• 2:30 PM: One-on-one with reports
• 3:30 PM: HR review
• 4:30 PM: Partnership negotiation
• 5:30 PM: Board preparation
• 6:30 PM: Interview.
• 7:30 PM: Team dinner and casual strategy dicussion

Every slot filled. Every hour accounted for.But when was the actual thinking happening?

Why This Calendar Wisdom is Wrong

In the last couple of years, I've had the chance to mirror athletes and have also read countless books to learn about how they structure their day. Professional athletes meticulously plan their days around training, recovery, nutrition, and mental preparation. Athletes organise everything around performance and optimise their energy to achieve peak performance. They know that their performance matters more than the hours they put in.

Should a leader not prioritise the most important thing and deal with that number 1 priority when they have the highest energy?

The contrast is stark: Athletes optimise everything for peak performance moments. Executives optimise everything for calendar convenience.

Here's what elite athletes understand that executives completely ignore:

Peak Days Are Structured With Military Precision

→ On game day, nothing is random. From meals to mindset, every element is designed for flow.

Athletes schedule their most demanding training during their biological prime time. A sprinter doesn't practice their race-winning technique when they're exhausted. They do it when their neuromuscular system is fresh. In contrast, executives schedule their most critical strategic decisions after a day of energy-draining meetings.

Recovery Is Not Optional, But A Strategy

→ Top athletes recover as hard as they train.

Professional athletes don't train for 8 straight hours. They understand that recovery periods aren't wasted time, but performance multipliers. Sleep, active recovery, and nervous system resets are integrated daily, not saved for weekends. Cognitive sharpness, creativity, and emotional regulation all correlate with rest. Yet, executives pride themselves on back-to-back meetings with no recovery.

Your Environment Shapes Your Energy

→ Athletes optimise everything: meals, lighting, and even city selection during training.

Athletes eat specific foods at specific times to fuel peak performance. They would never consume a heavy, glucose-spiking meal right before their most important event. They craft their default environment to reduce decision fatigue. On the other hand, business executives schedule working lunches before crucial investor presentations and wonder why afternoon decision-making suffers.

You Need Seasons

→ Athletes don't operate at 100% all year. Neither should you.

Elite athletes know that rest isn't the absence of training, but a time when adaptation happens. They build their calendar with alternating "performance sprints" and "regenerative pauses." NASA research shows that a 26-minute nap improved pilot alertness by 54% and performance by 34%. Yet, executives see breaks as productivity killers rather than performance enhancers.

This question changed everything for me. If an athlete wouldn't run a marathon right after a heavy meal, why do we schedule our most important strategic decisions after a glucose-crashing lunch? If tennis players time their nutrition to peak during crucial sets, why do we grab whatever's convenient and wonder why our afternoon meetings drag?

Research beyond sports

Studies on trained professionals show that cognitive performance degrades predictably throughout the day, and decision quality deteriorates as mental energy depletes.

• In controlled experiments, it has been proven that people performing willpower-draining tasks have significant drops in blood glucose. When given real sugar (not artificial sweeteners), participants showed improved persistence and self-control. Your brain literally consumes glucose when exercising cognitive control.
• Harvard researchers found that when cognitive resources are low, even ethical decision-making (by judges) suffers. In 1,112 parole decisions, Israeli judges made favourable rulings 65% of the time at the start of sessions, but this dropped to nearly zero before breaks, then jumped back to 65% after food and rest.
• A 2014 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine journal found that doctors were much more likely to prescribe unnecessary antibiotics later in the day than in the morning.

But, NASA also found that a 26-minute nap improved pilot alertness by 54% and performance by 34%. Brain research showed we naturally cycle through 90-120 minute periods of high and low alertness. These are ultradian rhythms that athletes already use to structure their training.

What I Did (My Experiment)

First was the task of figuring out my productivity metrics and ways to optimise them according to my body clock.

For knowledge workers, our currency isn't physical strength, but cognitive function:

• Executive decision-making: The ability to weigh complex tradeoffs under pressure.
• Creative problem-solving: Generating breakthrough insights and innovative solutions.
• Strategic thinking: Long-term planning that requires sustained mental clarity.
• Complex analysis: Processing large amounts of information to find patterns.

These aren't things you can brute-force through willpower. They require your brain to operate at peak capacity.

Wanting to understand what was happening to my own performance, I dove into the research and started treating my cognitive energy and performance like athletes treat their physical energy and performance.

Morning Protocol: I started fasting until lunch and scheduled my most important meetings before 12 PM. Sales calls, investor presentations, strategic planning, and everything that required peak cognitive function happened when my brain was fresh.

Walking Lunches: Instead of heavy working lunches that led to afternoon crashes, I moved to walking meetings for relationship-building conversations and lighter collaborative work.

Afternoon Admin: Email, follow-ups, routine operational tasks, everything that required less cognitive horsepower got pushed to the natural low-energy window between 2-4 PM.

Strategic Breaks: Every 90 minutes, I built in 15-20 minute recovery periods. Sometimes a walk, sometimes just stepping away from screens.

My New Energy Calendar

Here's what my optimised day looks like now:

8:00-9:30 AM   | Deep Work Block (Financial analysis, strategic planning)
‍
9:30-9:45 AM   | Break + Light movement
‍
10:00-11:30 AM | Most Important Meeting (Investor calls, major decisions)
‍
‍11:30-11:45 AM | Break + Hydration
‍
12:00-1:00 PM  | Walking lunch or light collaborative work
‍
1:00-2:00 PM   | Lowest energy window - admin tasks only
‍
2:00-2:20 PM   | Power nap or meditation (NASA shows 26-min naps improve performance 34%)
‍
4:00-4:15 PM   | Break + Low GI snack
‍
4:30-5:30 PM   | Follow-ups, email, planning for next day

Key Principles:

• Peak cognitive hours (8-11:30 AM): Reserved for most important work
• Natural energy dip (1-2 PM): Low-demand tasks only
• Strategic recovery: Breaks every 90 minutes to reset attention
• Afternoon rebound (2:30-4 PM): Collaborative and social work
• After 4:00 pm: (upskilling myself, and admin work)

What You Can Do

Week 1 - Learn Your Biology: Track your energy levels every hour for 7 days. Notice when you feel sharpest, when you naturally crash, and when you get a second wind. Track your food habits and how your biology reacts to them. We will cover more on circadian rhythm, food for high performance, etc, in subsequent articles.

Week 2 - Audit Your Tasks: Categorise your work into High Cognitive Load (complex analysis, strategy, creative work), Medium Load (meetings, planning), and Low Load (admin, email, routine tasks).

Week 3 - Design Your Energy Calendar:

• Schedule High Load work during your peak energy windows
• Batch Low Load tasks during natural energy dips
• Build in 15-20 minute breaks every 90 minutes
• Protect your peak hours like an athlete protects training time

Week 4 - Optimize and Iterate: Notice what works. Adjust timing based on your personal rhythms. Track the quality of decisions and creative output.

The executives who master this coordination between body, mind and ambition will have an unfair advantage in the corporate world as well as personal well-being. While their peers drain their cognitive resources on writing emails during peak hours and scheduling critical decisions during biological low points, energy-optimised leaders will be operating at full capacity when it matters the most.

Remember, time is democratic, but energy is unique and variable, depending on how a user harnesses, conserves, and uses it. Mastering that energy cycle is your competitive advantage.

Leverage it!