Time Management For Leaders
by Stacey D. Mitchell
When I first started coaching leaders, I noticed that one of the areas of opportunity that often surfaced was time management. When leaders shared how stretched they were and how they were not getting to spend time on the things that were central to their priorities and how their energy was sapped, we would often find ourselves exploring how that leader spent their time.
And it was annoying at times.
I mean, doing time audits and managing to the minute isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, especially for visionary leaders who draw energy from designing and bringing to life the big picture!
And after all, leaders must manage their time to some degree of effectiveness to get to the place where they are. Right? And of course, it is absolutely true that many leaders are actually stretched beyond the capacity of what any individual can do. Absolutely.
And yet, the fact remained that when we did a deep dive to suss out barriers and opportunities, time management, when tweaked, was consistently an area that afforded leaders more time and greater effectiveness.
In response to this conundrum, I often found myself sharing a few common tips:
Conduct an Energy Audit. Our energy exists in four general categories: spiritual, mental, social and emotional.*
Spiritual energy is your connection with a higher power or existence beyond yourself, and potentially this world
Mental energy is comprised of your thoughts, ideas and cerebral or cognitive engagement
Social energy is your connection to other human beings
Emotional energy is your feelings and emotions
Oftentimes, we are not aware of what types of activities drain or fill our different categories of energy. We don’t know which categories of energy we rely most heavily on at which points of the day or in various situations. For example, in working with one leader (we’ll call her Jana), we found that she relies heavily on mental energy in the morning. She is energized by solving hairy problems and can work for prolonged periods of time if her work is centered around them. She learned that her mental energy peaks in the morning; and that she is much more social and energized to do collaborative work in the afternoons. In fact, she found that she was less patient and more nit-picky with those whom she engaged with early in the morning. She learned that high emotion in the workplace really sapped her energy. These insights empowered her to manage her energy more effectively and structure her day to support how she expended and received energy.
So, how, then, do you conduct an energy audit? There are a variety of resources out there to support you in these efforts. However, you might start by monitoring your energy throughout the course of a week:
Pick a week that is pretty representative of your normal life. That is if you are taking that annual trip for a week to Philly, you might skip that week for the audit.
At the end of each day (or even throughout the day in a little pocket journal), make note of particular times when
you were really energized and amped up
you felt positively drained or even anxious
[Don’t worry if you don’t have an example for each. That, in and of itself, is a data point. We’ll explore that more later on.]
3. For each of these times, get curious. Ask yourself
Where was I?
What time of day was it?
What was happening at these times?
Who, if anyone, was present?
What activities was I engaged in, if any?
4. Identify patterns. If you notice that you mostly felt energized and ready to go when you were with others, you might mostly draw energy from your social domain. Conversely, if you notice that you felt most drained when you were with others, socializing might disproportionately deplete your energy.
Structure Your Time to Match Your Energy.
Given what Jana learned about her energy, we worked together to structure her work time to match her energy. As a senior leader of a team of five, we assumed that she needed to dedicate at least 20% of her time to individual work time. Therefore, when she carved out workblocks to do heady work, they were all before noon. Jana liked to work in the early morning when the world was still dark and calm, so she completed a lot of her strategic work before she headed into the office. (This might work for some, but definitely not for others.)
Also, Jana was able to schedule weekly team meetings and check-ins for the early afternoons, when she had more social energy to expend. That way, she could prepare during her morning work times for her afternoon meetings. Because she learned that spiritual energy was key to her sustainability throughout the day, she added a daily 15min event to her calendar each midday for her to take time for prayer and meditation, which she would move up or down by a half-hour, when needed. And she did not budge on taking a 30min, no work lunch every day. She learned that back to back meetings really sapped her physical energy. So she committed to eat and take a short walk during her lunch break each day.
Design Objective-Driven Work Blocks.
When working with another leader, let’s call him Dave, we found that he faithfully scheduled work blocks. However, by the end of the week, he often hadn’t accomplished the goals he had set out to accomplish for the week. When taking a look at his work blocks, we found that they were not objective-driven. That is, he had not broken down his weekly goals into daily objectives with time estimates and then assigned them to each of his workblocks. So, he often found himself responding to emails or urgent matters or working on a project that was not feasible to accomplish in the work block he had allocated to spend on it.
Develop and implement systems to promote strong communication about what you can feasibly accomplish by when.
It will inevitably be the case that someone wants something from you on a timeline that you are not able to meet. Leaders that I have worked with have found it to be helpful to put systems in place that promote communication and self-accountability.
Two systems in particular are:
Review tracker: A review tracker can be used for those who have to review and turn around material often. This allows you to avoid dropping balls and helps you know when to communicate with a collaborator that a particular deadline is not feasible given your other responsibilities. This could be a simple spreadsheet or a sophisticated platform. What matters most is that you find the system that works for you. Here is a snapshot of what a review tracker could look like:
Daily Communication Block: I often suggest that leaders block off 15 minutes at the end or top of each day to respond to urgent emails, even if it is to say that a substantive response is forthcoming. I also recommend that this block be used to update or reset expectations with collaborators. For example, you might send an email saying,
Hi Jarvian,
I saw your request that I review the email to the funder by the 14th. Given that I return from vacation the day before the due date, I am concerned I may not be able to meet that deadline. Is it possible to have it to you by the end of the week, the 18th, instead? If not, I would be grateful for any additional context you can provide on the necessity of this due date.
Thank you so much for getting this draft together!
Dave
3. Scheduling tracker: I typically recommend a scheduling tracker to leaders who spend the vast majority of their workdays in a meeting and who often find themselves needing to manage dueling priorities for meeting times. A scheduling tracker enables leaders or their assistants to keep track of time requests and to schedule them strategically. This could also be managed in an excel spreadsheet or in a scheduling tool. Either way, I have found that the most effective scheduling trackers often include:
Meeting title
Participant list
Length of meeting
Requestor
Requestor contact information
Objectives
Date requested
Schedule-by date
Happen-by date
Status
Notes
Link to materials
In sum, time management is dynamic. You could find a system that works perfectly for you. Then your life circumstances or job responsibilities could change and demand a different system. And your well-working system could experience hiccups at times. Regardless of personal or work circumstances, great time management is founded on a deep understanding of self and active attention to changing needs. With this understanding, everyone can experience the fullness of the power that strong time management offers us all!
*Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time - Harvard Business Review, 2007
Need help managing your time? Contact us at www.sageliconsulting.com/connect
Stacey D. Mitchell is the Founder & Principal Consultant of SAGEli Consulting.
