08/06/2014
Finding Time in Your 25-Hour Workday to Support Your Team
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How often do you apologize to others for being too busy? How would you like to have more time for your team?
As CEO of a growing early-stage startup, I spend my time touching nearly every aspect of the business. Employees on every team constantly rely on me for my input. And while they know that I am stretched thin, they have very real demands for my time. I want to be available so that important initiatives don’t bottleneck and to fulfill a deep commitment to supporting my employees in achieving their personal and professional goals.
While time-management programs and techniques are extremely useful for balancing and prioritizing an entrepreneur's schedule, the most valuable tactic is to reframe the understanding of time altogether.
Time is not a separate external phenomenon, but rather something that you can actually generate. The key is to intentionally focus on what you want, instead of constantly focusing on how much time you don’t have.
Related: Want to Be Successful? Stick to a Schedule.
Time is fluid. Einstein said that time is an illusion. But unless you are moving near the speed of light, chances are you are still stuck with the standard 24-hour day, seven day week and so on. People slot their various tasks into this construct, but it's possible to have more control than you think. There is also a subjective quality to time, and it is your relationship with it that determines that reality.
Your perception of time and how much you can accomplish during a fixed period can vary widely. For example, when an automobile crash seem to be imminent, everything seems to slow down. Then in one fraction of a second you may able to swerve away from impact and then regain control. That tiny span of time can seem to stretch on for several seconds or more.
The same is true when you are performing a task. For elite athletes who run a 30-second sprint, time seems to stretch on forever. That elongated perception can be replicated regardless of the task, based on how focused you are.
Related: 3 Ways to Avoid Distractions and Be More Productive
Don’t let time manage you. Have you ever maintained absolute uninterrupted focus until you completed a project? Afterward you marveled at how much high-quality work you produced in just several hours. This flow state can be accessed at will.
The feeling that there isn’t enough time is an illusion. Once you renegotiate your relationship with time through dedicated engagement to any task, you can then follow these techniques to pare down your to-do list and keep your commitments to your team:
1. How do you feel? The way we breathe, eat, sleep and relate to others all have an impact on our ability to perform at peak levels. When all your needs are met and you feel healthy and at ease, you can focus, be more productive and master your time.
2. Prioritize your most important activities first. In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey provided the analogy of placing rocks into a jar. Just like your day, the jar has limited space. If you begin by adding sand and then add pebbles (the small tasks), you will not have room for the large rocks (the more important, time-consuming tasks).
To make everything fit, you have to put the rocks in first, then the pebbles, sand and water. Always start your day with your most important tasks first. You can then generate the necessary time for all the smaller, less important things.
Related: Use the 'Eisenhower Box' to Stop Wasting Time and Be More Productive
3. Stay in it. The most time-consuming and bumpy parts of a flight are the takeoff and landing. But while the plane is at cruising altitude, you experience a smooth ride.
If you constantly look away from tasks that require intense mental concentration, you will waste time reimmersing yourself into your flow. By repeatedly giving into distraction, your day will get away from you. Instead, establish a period of time when you will multitask, taking care of emails and other small items. When those things come to mind during your focused work, jot down a quick note to handle them later.
4. Commit to hard stops. At any moment you can be creating structure for the future or be totally present. When you have open-ended meetings, you will forget the important things that still need to be done and will become stressed. Don’t look at the clock while you should be fully engaged in a task or conversation. Create boundaries and use external reminders like setting an alarm, so that you can stay in the moment fully and then move on to other tasks.
Cyril Parkinson said, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” By focusing, prioritizing and setting boundaries, leaders can control time instead of always feeling overwhelmed. Shift your strategies for time management, discover more time for your employees and stop apologizing for being too busy. Because what they are actually hearing you say is “Sorry, this task is more important than you.”
Related: Drive a Feedback Loop: Employees Will Benefit, So Will Your Company
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RyanKBiddulphangela ferguson
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angela ferguson
angela ferguson 4 hours ago
A great, focused article. I often give in to the distraction of email when i am avoiding a large or difficult task. it seems though that when i let my emails pile up for the day time 'stretches' and i'm able to accomplish SO much more!
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RyanKBiddulph
RyanKBiddulph 2 days ago
The illusory aspect of time helps one find more time David ;) Power post!
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David Hassell
David Hassell Contributor
CEO and Founder of 15Five
David Hassell is a serial entrepreneur and founder & CEO of 15Five, a software as a service company that enables organizations to streamline communication and feedback.
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There will always be fellow entrepreneurs with more funding, better connections or years of experience. One thing, however, that puts us all on a level playing field: the number of hours in a day. Figuring out how to effectively spend the 24 hours in each day is one of the most challenging parts of being a business owner.
When I first started out, I thought the main perk of working on my own as a publicist would be being able to do things, according to my own schedule. I didn’t have a daily routine. My schedule would just depend on my mood.
After about a year of functioning in this way, I realized that I needed to work during more normal business hours if I really wanted to grow my company. I decided to create a schedule and I still stick to one today. Not only did this make me feel significantly less stressed, I was getting more done in fewer hours!
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Heather Pierce, designer and CEO of Raya Hanon in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., says it best: “On top of the duties and pressures that come along with being a business owner, there is always people needing your immediate attention," she writes via email. "A skill that is helpful is prioritizing your tasks and keeping a list of everything that needs to get accomplished.”
If you don’t create a plan on a daily or weekly basis, becoming disorganized is easy. Even if you have all the resources in the world, not using your time wisely can cost you.
Here are some ways to set up a routine and get more done:
1. Embrace mornings, nights or weekends. Pick one of these times, when other people aren’t working, to focus on projects that require a lot of concentration. Every morning from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. is my uninterrupted time to write articles, answer emails and work on research projects.
If I tried to get these projects done in the middle of the day, it would take me twice as long because I would be constantly distracted by phone calls, emails and meetings. Those four hours in the morning are my most productive. I probably get about 75 percent of my work done then.
Related: Productivity and Creativity Often Seem at Odds, But Are They Really?
2. Schedule everything in one spot or organizational device. This may seem like it's taking out all the fun in life. Wrong! It makes life more fun because you aren’t constantly worrying about how to fit everything in.
It's "crucial to make sure you record all your meetings and appointments in one place instead of having them scattered throughout different calendars, notebooks, and apps," writes Alexandra Weiss, a partner at CA Creative in New York, via email. "Not only will it save time to only have to check one calendar but it will also help ensure that you are not double booking or missing any meetings.”
When I first began my public relations work, I often canceled plans with friends because projects would take longer than I expected. I didn't feel I was getting anything done. Then I started scheduling both my professional and personal commitments in one place and assigning equal importance to both. This way I can really see how much time I have for each.
Related: Learning to Say No to Interruptions to Foster Creativity in Business
3. Find a method that works for you. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all method for scheduling. Try a few different things and see what works. If your calendar or to-do list isn’t easy to use, you will never keep your schedule organized.
For example, Jamie Walker, CEO of SweatGuru and Fit Approach in San Francisco, shares via email, “I schedule EVERYTHING on my calendar and every little thing I need to do goes on Trello." About the organizational app, she says, "I love Trello because I can create a to-do list each week and access it from my phone or computer."
Adds Walker: "I can also assign my team tasks and check in to see what [different individuals] have on their plates for the week. It's such a great way to stay organized and on schedule.”
In contrast, Pierce usually creates "a long, to-do list containing everything that needs to be completed," she says. "I then mark the most urgent tasks and the things that I am able to get done later in the day and the things that need to be done during business hours. The tasks that need to get done that same day I call my SOS list.”
4. Don’t panic when things don’t go according to the plan. This is probably something I could work at. I become anxious when meetings run late, conference calls go over the budgeted time or projects take longer than anticipated. The reality is this type of thing happens on a daily basis, and you can’t get too stressed out about it. Figuring out how to deal with the unexpected is just part of being an entrepreneur.
When you have set up a structure, and the things arise at the last minute, it's a lot easier to deal with them. There is no point in worrying. That will just cut into your schedule even more.
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