While I think that completely avoiding a calendar or any fixed appointments is a bit unrealistic (think of doctor's appointments), I agree and deeply sympathize

While I think that completely avoiding a calendar or any fixed appointments is a bit unrealistic (think of doctor's appointments), I agree and deeply sympathize with the gist of it. One of the main reasons I quit my previous job was that I was unable to get any meaningful work done, because the day was very tightly organized around a central ticketing system. Oh, you had a nice idea to solve one of the problems in the long-term project the company is currently working on? Too bad, because there are already 4, oh wait, 5, high-priority tickets waiting for you, and by the time you have finished those, you will have forgotten the idea. This happened so frequently and was so frustrating that after a few months I just shut off my brain and was basically a robot finishing off tickets assigned to me. Needless to say, I felt miserable for 1.5 years. After I quit, I lived off my savings for 6 months and literally had no schedule of any kind. I woke up and did whatever I was interested in. I got more work done in these 6 months than in the 2 years before.