Mastering Even One These Time-Tips Will Impact Your Leadership Effectiveness
For my birthday this year, I was gifted a trip to Disney World with my parents which was an amazing treat and made me feel like a kid again. Call me crazy, but we stood in line for about 2 hours to ride Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure since I’m crazy about the movie. All that standing in line got me thinking about time and how it is a precious commodity.
As leaders, we desire to have more of it, yet it is often the thing we mismanage the most. Time is one of the top three topics that my clients want to address in our coaching engagements. They want to be more strategic and productive with their time as they juggle multiple priorities and deadline pressures.
Here are some important time-tips to consider. Mastering even one of these can make a big difference in your leadership effectiveness.
1. Block Time to Think and Plan
This is critical in leadership. Spending days in meeting after meeting, answering email and responding to messages doesn’t allow for important time to strategize and plan. This is known as the all-important quadrant 2 of time (based on the Covey 4 quadrant model) and essentially boils down to ensuring we are spending a dedicated chunk of time working on important things that are not urgent. I recommend blocking time once a day when you are alert or a longer block once a week to work on important strategic tasks and engage in strategic thinking.
2. Take Time for People
A key role for any leader is supporting, developing, and encouraging their people. If you don’t have time for them, it sends a signal that they aren’t valued. In our current environment where employees are continually enticed by better jobs at other companies, thoughtful one-on-one meetings that happen on a regular basis are an imperative. Taking time to actively listen, recognize their work and show compassion in difficult times can make a big difference in an employee’s engagement level.
3. Save Distractions for Designated Blocks of Shallow Work Time
There are two big reasons leaders should limit distractions and control the urge for a dopamine hit that comes when you read and respond to a message right away. First, being distracted in meetings or when you’re with people sends a message that they aren’t important enough to warrant your full attention. It also signals that they can do the same thing which can really tank the productivity of a meeting (I’ve seen that happen firsthand). Second, constant distractions prevent your brain from taking time to think more deeply. There is a reason some of the best ideas come in the shower (you’re not distracted by a flood of messages demanding your attention).
4. Control Your Calendar, Don’t Let it Control You
I see too many leaders allow their calendars to get out of control with back-to-back meetings. It’s okay to say “no” or “not now” to a meeting (especially if there is no clear agenda). It’s okay to say, “I’m not needed at this meeting” and delegate it to someone else. Time blocking and weekly calendar planning can go a long way to help manage this problem.
5. Take Time to Rest
Fatigue is a common theme in today’s work environment and on-going fatigue leads to burn-out. Pushing through to keep working without breaks or working long hours without enough sleep actually causes us to be less productive, not more. I encourage my clients to think about three areas of rest – 1) what is your plan for regular breaks during the day to recharge, 2) how will you wind down in the evening and get the 7 – 8 hours of sleep you need for the next day and 3) how will you use time-off to take a break from work to refresh and recharge.
In case you are wondering, the long wait for the Remy ride was well worth it!! And looking back, I even got to use 3 of the 5 time-tips I mentioned above while waiting in line. Can you guess which ones?
If you’d like to learn more about how I help leaders accelerate their growth and influence, schedule a call at https://go.oncehub.com/ShylaAllard.