Doing it 1-2 days/week is the difference between being able to get some focus time to deliver something of value, and just being an internal search engine.
My job has lots and lots of calls. I am happy to leave most of my calendar open. But most mornings, and at least one full day every 2 weeks is mine, and no, you can't have it, you're not entitled to it, it's important to me I have that time to actually do focus work.
I'm more in project management these days. It makes me laugh when an engineer says "I didn't get any work done today, as it was all meetings" - means I don't work for 20-30 hours/week.
The trick is balance for the role. For engineers it should be a lot more focus time, for PMs and managers it should be a lot more managers, but you should still be able to block out calendars for focus time if you need to - just not all day, every day, forever.
I have been Principal engineer at a company you have heard of, and hands-on CTO at multiple start-ups. I feel qualified in stating that my views hold across multiple job roles, from engineering to project management.
Doing it 1-2 days/week is the difference between being able to get some focus time to deliver something of value, and just being an internal search engine.
My job has lots and lots of calls. I am happy to leave most of my calendar open. But most mornings, and at least one full day every 2 weeks is mine, and no, you can't have it, you're not entitled to it, it's important to me I have that time to actually do focus work.