Every person, manager, and leader has twenty-four hours in the day. How we choose to use those hours greatly impacts how we live our life, what we accomplish, and how we grow and develop personally and professionally.
Time Management is one of the most focused on leadership dimensions in our LEAD NOW! Model. Over the years, we have found that how a leader manages their time has a major impact on their ability to get work done efficiently and effectively and serve as a role model for their direct reports and peers.
Here are eight steps we recommend leaders practice to take back their time and focus on the activities and actions that create high value for their organization and their personal lives.
1. Don’t be a slave to digital devices that distract you
For all the many benefits of our digital devices, it’s critical to remember that they are designed to distract and eat up as much of your time as they can. This phenomenon has been termed the “attention economy.” When our concentration is continually broken by email or chat notifications, or when we give into ‘inbox anxiety’ time slips through our fingers.
Oftentimes, when our devices compete for our attention, they distract us from focusing on the employee or customer conversation, solving a complex problem, or planning a long-term project. Resisting the attention economy has become even more challenging as many of us now work remotely.
There are a number of approaches you can take to win back your attention. You can put your phone in another room in order to short-circuit your habit of reaching for it, you can create blocks of time for responding to email and chat messages, you can commit to turning off your device so you are present for 1:1 conversations or meetings, and you can even invest in anti-distraction apps.
2. Plan shorter, more efficient meeting agendas and strategies
Everyone loves a short, concise, and well-planned meeting. The key to leading one is the development of a robust agenda that will keep you on topic. If items arise that are not on the agenda, handle them offline as they may not pertain to the entire group or add them to a future meeting agenda.
Two meeting enhancers that make a difference:
- Ask the team for feedback on the overall effectiveness and timing of meetings, and choose one or two ideas to implement. You will find that if the entire team provides feedback on ways to be more efficient, meetings will go smoother and be shorter.
- In addition to an agenda, create a task spreadsheet and review it every meeting. In the spreadsheet, include the assigned task, specific details decided in the meeting, the name of the person responsible for completing the task, and a due date. So many times, outstanding ideas or tasks get discussed in meetings, but we fail to take the next step and assign an owner. This quick tool can make a significant difference in a team’s performance, getting work done on time, and creating better engagement in meetings.
3. Have your people represent you at meetings when possible
Take a moment to review your calendar and identify the meetings you must attend and the meetings where a team member could add just as much value, or more, by attending in your place. Not only is this an excellent opportunity for growth and development for the person who represents the team for you, and it will free up your calendar and create an engaging workforce where employees feel empowered.
A time management tip in the LEAD NOW! book l is to identify and select the aspects of your job that have the biggest payoff. These areas deserve the major portions of your time, energy, and resources. Treat them as sacred – otherwise, they will be eroded by lesser things. Using this same approach as you consider your meetings, is a great way to make sure you are focused on the right things.
4. Don’t accept meeting invitations without knowing why you need to attend
Do not accept a meeting invite unless you know the answers to these three questions:
- What is the meeting about?
- Who are the stakeholders?
- What do you need to do to prepare?
Bonus points if you make including this information in the invitation a requirement for your attendance. When you understand the purpose of the meeting and what you need to contribute, you can better manage your schedule.
5. Integrate some “closed-door” time into your “open door” policy
As a leader, we must be available for our employees, peers, boss, and customers. However, it is ok to have time for yourself to “close your door” and work through your to-do list.
A leader who managed a large, global team shared that she used her lunchtime as her “closed-door” time and did not accept questions, calls, or texts during that window.
She kept this same approach when the whole team went virtual. That 30 minutes of closed-door enables her to keep her energy up and focus on what must get done before the end of the day. This practice has proved especially valuable as work has shifted to being remote.
6. Schedule personal catch-up time. Many leaders set aside 1-2 hours early each morning
We all need time to plan, think about what we need to accomplish and prepare for the day—leaders who excel in time management reserve time on their calendars for catch up and planning.
By making a plan for each day, you will establish a basic guide for your day. Determine high-payoff items versus low-payoff items, following the 80/20 rule. Even though you will experience events that will likely interrupt your plan, you will accomplish more, and you will feel in greater control.
7. Analyze existing tasks or processes to see if they can be eliminated, improved or automated
Building a continuous improvement mindset for you and your team is a great way to save time.
I spoke with a colleague that shared his team’s approach to streamlining work.During their regular meetings, they saved 30 minutes to talk about processes that seemed overly complicated, took too much time, or simply did not create value. Every team member was asked to bring an idea forward and share it with the team. After six months, the team found they could eliminate several processes, reports, and work that reduced over 2 hours of work per week per person.
8. Don’t take on other people’s responsibilities
It’s an easy trap to fall into – especially if you like to solve problems and help people do their best. There is a strong temptation to take on more than one can handle and believe that a leader is expected to do it all! A leader needs to be selective about the problems they try and solve. The fact is, successful leaders know how to not solve all the issues on their own. They focus on the biggest things that only they can solve. They leave the rest to others or let them go unresolved.
A leader has 24 hours in a day; how we choose to use that time greatly impacts our personal and professional lives. By incorporating these eight steps, we hope you find you have more time in your day to focus on your top priorities and the work where you can make the most impact.
Time Management Self -Assessment:
- I regularly prioritize my daily tasks and responsibilities
- I effectively manage short and long term objectives and commitments
- I know how to identify and stop doing non-core activities
- I delegate activities to others
- I control my schedule instead of my schedule controlling me
- I know what to say “no” to
- I am prepared for meetings
- I use electronic devices to my advantage
