Cal Henderson
When you’re the co-founder and chief tech officer at Slack, which has 12 million daily users, the messages never stop. Here’s how the father of two finds his balance
6:45am Fake-Commute
Like millions of other people now working from home, Henderson, 40, had trouble establishing a morning routine. “You have to be a lot more intentional about separating your work and life,” he says. “For me, my 45-minute commute was that separation. Now, I go out for a one-mile walk in the morning, almost like a fake commute. My goal is to walk every street in San Francisco. I use this app called CityStrides, and it’ll tell you how many streets you have left to walk. I’m nowhere near done.”
10:30am Use the FiveMinute Rule
Henderson says that his calendar is filled with back-to-back calls and Zoom meetings. To free up time for himself and others, Slack HQ instituted the “five-minute rule”: every meeting must be set to end five minutes before the conventional 30-minute or hour-long window. “It’s so everybody can have a break, stretch their legs, get a snack. It’s difficult to maintain that focus [on online calls].”
12:15pm Do Lunch
WFH also means that Henderson rarely has the opportunity to see his colleagues. Instead, he plans weekly lunches with his team to boost morale.
“We’re all just eating lunch on Zoom. There’s no formal agenda, but I have a much better day when I’m able to take lunch off [with] them.”
3:20pm Hit “Do Not Disturb”
Henderson takes full advantage of the Slack custom status when his day is looking packed. “I use the ‘Do Not Disturb’ setting, so if someone sends you a direct message, it’s not going to pop up unless it’s an emergency,” he explains. “At Slack, we have a three-hour block scheduled for engineers, just so they can have time to write code and focus.”
5:30pm Play Uno
At the end of his working day, Henderson spends at least an hour with his wife and two kids – no devices allowed. “We use Slack in our house as well,” he says. “But just to be with them for a few hours every day, that’s our set schedule that happens every night. Right now, my six-year-old is obsessed with Uno. I’ve played about 30 hours of it so far.”
10:15pm “Actively” De-Stress
After work, Henderson doesn’t unplug by settling on the couch in front of the TV. Instead, he relaxes in bed with audiobooks – played at two to three times the normal speed, so he can finish them faster. “In 2019, I think I listened to almost 200 books. I listen to a lot of sci-fi books. My wife hates it when I call it ‘reading’.”