I coach a number of leaders of various stripes around tech, and one issue that comes up for everyone is time management. I think of it more as “obligation control.”
As any kind of leader, you are the the first resource people tend to call, not just for obstacles, but for FYIs and general information. Your job may involve knowing what’s happening across a broad set of projects. Just think of the math: if you have a small team of 5 people to lead, you are managing 200 hours of work per week. Everyone on your team has things where they want - or should want - a bit of your brain space. Add to that the number of communicaton channels (25), timezones, and schedules, and you are already overloaded.
So how do effective leaders manage their time? How do you control the virtually unlimited number of obligations that seek your attention? I had a chat with a colleague today on the subject and thought I’d share.
Personally, I’m very strict about my schedule and up front about that with everyone. I have very hard start and stop times every day, and I try to be dogmatic about my “no meeting day” (more on that in another post). This has two important effects:
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It forces me to “switch off” my work brain at a certain time every day, driving a baseline level of work/life balance.
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It imposes scarcity on my schedule, forcing me to be very picky about which meetings I attend. The basic skill you have to nurture is to say “no” more than you think you can.
It’s hard. Some people find it helps to have a scapegoat… so think in advance of a couple of good excuses. “I need to circle back with my team about that,” and “My child has an appointment at that time,” are favorites from colleagues I’ve mentored. Personally I just say “I’m not available at that time.” No one questions it.
It’s important to follow the “no” with a request proceed without you (if that’s possible), or with a suggested future time. Very very very few things we deal with have life or death consequences within a 1 week time-frame. As an aside: if it was possible to proceed without you, that should trigger you to reconsider if you really need to be at that meeting cadence at all. A good leader tries to grow their people so that they are not personally needed for anything.
Personally, I’m very strict about my schedule and try to communicate it clearly with everyone. I have very hard start and stop times every day, and I try to be dogmatic about my “no meeting day” (more on that in another post). This has two important effects:
-
It forces me to “switch off” my work brain at a certain time every day, driving a baseline level of work/life balance.
-
It imposes scarcity on my schedule, forcing me to be very picky about which meetings I attend.
It sounds mean. It even feels a little mean. But the habit is essential: with every meeting, first consider if your attendance is really critical, or if you can get the information another way. Here are some alternative ways to consider:
- Meeting recordings
- Written meeting notes
- Have a representative attend and report back to you
- Simply trust that the team will continue operating as they have in the past.
You can make use of all of these tactics at different times. A word of caution, however: you will miss some of the context, particularly the unspoken conditions on the team, this way. It’s important that you book regular sessions with the people actually doing the work to compensate for this loss. If you build healthy relationships with the people where “the rubber meets the road”, they will tell you when there is unspoken disfunction or other trouble on the team.
One final trick: the schedule I tell people is a little shorter than my ACTUAL availability. I say I’m only available till 7.30pm local time, but the truth is it’s fine if I work till 8. Most nights that extra half hour is for closing out the day’s business, but I can make someone feel special and extra-important by “staying on late” for them.
You might note this all leaves you with very little agency to impact your own schedule. It’s quite reactive! I can offer you two tricks for proactively deciding where to impact and for making efficiency gains:
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I keep a RACI chart of all the different areas of work, and I only allow myself ONE item in the Responsible column. Everything else I monitor from the outside, often asynchronously. This chart has no validity for the rest of my organization; I’m ultimately responsible fr all of the threads. It still helps as a mental tool though, to make me consciously decide where I will lean in to have impact… and to limit those places. Without it, it is too easy for me to see potential impact everywhere and dilute my time too much.
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I do everything I can to make sure the work is organized and information is structured so it’s easy to context switch. That’s the best source for time savings I have. I use a project management tool, so I can view the information from different perspectives:
- I’m always taking notes in a relevant ticket.
- I can “zoom out” to overview all of the workstreams
- I can track progress across all the workstreams
- I can quickly report on status of any given workstream and issue with a high degree of granularity.
- If I’m feeling flashy I can even make dashboards about it
A good leader makes conscious decisions about where to invest their time, builds relationships and collects information from up and down their whole organization, leverages their whole team and every available option to maximize their reach, and exercises conscious restraint to avoid over-committing. Hopefully these tips help you get a few steps closer.