Managing your time and schedule intentionally as a leader
Leaders know that time is their greatest commodity. They understand the value of their own time (and that of others) so they don't waste it.
They don't let their calendar get taken over with meaningless meetings, they don't waste time spinning their wheels on a project, and they don't commit to more than they can handle.
Leaders do this by knowing their priorities, identifying their boundaries, communicating their boundaries to others, and respecting those boundaries consistently.
A metaphor about energy that I love (and that applies perfectly here) is the idea that your personal energy is like a cup filled with water (or your liquid of choice). When you participate in activities or situations that give you more energy, you are filling your cup with more liquid. When you participate in activities or situations that reduce your energy, you are pouring the liquid out of your cup.
It's important to recognize that activities that give you energy (or liquid) aren't necessarily 'good' just like activities that reduce your energy aren't necessarily 'bad.' However, when we run out of energy, or our cup is empty, is when we have given too much of ourselves. This usually manifests itself as being burnt out or overwhelmed. At this point, it takes us more time and energy to refill our cup than usual after we've completely depleted ourselves.
So the learning here is that we need to constantly be aware of our cup level, the activities and situations that are pouring in or out of our cup, and invest in ourselves so that we do not run on empty.
Now, back to how this relates to leadership. There are five key steps that I see leaders must do in order to manage their time and schedule intentionally.
Your top priority is your own well-being
Being a leader requires investing your time and energy into others, and you cannot pour from an empty cup.
So first and foremost you need to make sure you are taking care of yourself. This means your physical health (sleep, exercise, eating, etc.), mental and emotional well-being, and making sure you are consistently keeping your 'cup full.'
Accountability action: Add your well-being activities into your calendar, first and foremost, so it is not forgotten or deprioritized. Consider adding time blocks and reminders for activities such as: workouts, lunch, therapy, taking breaks, and leaving work when you say you will.
2. Knowing both your short-term and long-term work priorities
A simple first step is working backwards from deadlines to map out priorities, milestones, and deadlines. Don't let deadlines sneak up on you, or procrastinate on what feels hard.
A lot of times when our priorities are unclear, we simply focus on what's easiest just to feel productive, but usually those are not the most important tasks to move our projects forward.
Accountability action: add reminders to your calendar or planner to review tomorrow's schedule at the end of each day and to review next week's schedule at the end of each week.
Review tomorrow's schedule at the end of each day:
What are your three biggest priorities for tomorrow?
Review next week's schedule at the end of each week:
Where do you need time blocks for focused work, buffers for travel time between meetings, specific follow ups from meetings, etc.?
Does anything need to change or move?
Are you prepared for these meetings and deadlines? Do you need more time blocks to prepare further for anything?
3. Identifying your boundaries
Your boundaries as a leader help you identify what you are willing and not willing to do in your work relationships. They factor in both your personal and professional commitments, schedules, and energy. This is where you can essentially make a working agreement with yourself to help you clarify your working boundaries.
First, start with identifying your time boundaries. This biggest place to start is your ideal working hours and days. You may also need to block time on your calendar for deep focus work and/or client work. Then review your meetings to ensure that they are still relevant and important to you and your priorities. Read more tips about leading efficient meetings in our previous blog post here.
Then, consider your communication boundaries - when and on which platform will you communicate with your teams? Boundaries here can look like: texts to your personal phone are only for urgent or emergency situations, and your preferred day-to-day communication is Slack messages during your business days and hours.
You can even set boundaries with yourself (and others) for how quickly to expect a response across different communication platforms. This way you aren't simply reacting to everything coming at you, but instead you can intentionally prioritize your communication within your limited time.
A huge win for many of my clients has been limiting how often they check their email to only two or three time blocks a day.
Other areas to consider include: instead of having a completely open door policy, dedicate scheduled time to your team for office hours for their non-urgent requests and questions.
The most important piece here is to make sure you leave wiggle room in your schedule and commitments because LIFE HAPPENS! We can never plan for unexpected illnesses, last minute deadlines, or new opportunities that pop up.
Accountability action: add your necessary time blocks to your calendar and write down your communication boundaries somewhere you will see regularly.
4. Communicating your boundaries to others
Your working boundaries as a leader need to be clear not only for yourself and your family, but for your team so you are all on the same page with expectations.
If you create these boundaries and don't share them with the people you're working with, they will not be able to respect your boundaries. From another person's perspective it could come across as you being less dedicated to your work (if you're not responding to everything immediately or always working late anymore), but in reality, you're trying to do your job even better by being more efficient.
It may feel counter-intuitive at first to say no to things or not respond immediately, but you need to focus on your priorities in order to be as successful and efficient as possible.
A great way to communicate these boundaries with your team is to encourage everyone to create their own boundaries as well. One method of this is creating a team working agreement. It's essentially making your working styles, communication preferences, and expectations very explicit in a document that you all are agreeing to and building together. Here is a great tutorial to get you started.
Accountability action: add 'team working agreements' to your next team meeting to discuss the value of this and enroll your team in creating one together. Then schedule a meeting solely dedicated to creating this.
5. Respecting your boundaries consistently
Now, the most important part of any idea or plan: bringing it to life and committing to it long term.
It's important to respect your boundaries so that you can finally create that work-life balance you've been craving forever. All of my clients who have committed to their boundaries at work have found that they get more done in less time and are able to have more time (and energy) outside of work.
One of my favorite examples is my client who is an accountant and partner at their firm. All accountants I've ever known tend to work lots of late nights and weekends during March and April in order to hit their April 15th tax deadline.
Well, my client wanted to do things differently this year. They wanted to be able to enjoy more time with their kids during spring break, which happened to be the week before their big deadline. Their goal was to take a short vacation, completely away from work, during this time.
By focusing on their schedule, priorities, and work habits during our weekly accountability coaching sessions, they were able to take three days off of work during their busiest time of the year which they had never been able to do in their 13 years as an accountant. 🤯
They even left a day earlier than planned because they were so caught up on their work. 🤯🤯
It's also important to stick to your boundaries since you are setting an example in your organization.
If your company culture says that you value work-life balance yet all of your leaders are sending late night emails, that doesn't add up.
Accountability action: have an accountability buddy (someone on your team or a peer) check in with you about your commitments and boundaries to share what's working and what's not working. It's okay to change as needed and it may never be perfect, but you need to prioritize these activities in order to see the results that you want.
Time Management is one of six skills covered in the free Leadership Blind Spot Audit… take it to see your own patterns. Take the audit here.
Brittany Canaski is a highly-rated Leadership Coach, Trainer, and Founder of Hello Velocity where she builds confident leaders and high-performing teams. When she's not building her business, you can find her planning her next travel adventure with her husband, watching Formula 1 racing, or volunteering in her local community of Charlotte, NC.
