Conquer the Time Vampires

Daria was a newly appointed COO of a medical center who came to me with a problem. She was in the office at 5AM almost every day, left late, and brought work home most weekends. Yet she felt that she was accomplishing little and didn’t have time to succeed as a leader. In my work as an advisor to executive leaders, I find that many of them, like Daria, fall prey to particular phenomena that I call the time vampires. These are all the time-wasters that suck valuable time from your work day and hinder your path to successful leadership.

Here’s how you can defeat the time vampires that lurk in your office:

Identify your time vampires. Start by becoming aware of what robs precious time from your day – it could be excessive meetings, endless emails, overly dependent employees. These don’t let you get done what you want to accomplish as a leader. Ask yourself, “What is sucking time from my day?” Daria, for example, realized that her weekly staff meeting were held out of habit, with no agenda, and sometimes ran for hours with little focus. This meeting was a major time vampire for Daria.

Change what you say. Do you talk about “spending” time? Talk instead about “investing” your time, because time is finite – you’ve got it, and then it is gone. Once you treat time as the valuable commodity that it is, you will find that you will think twice, like Daria learned to do, and invest it where it will bring you the most value.

Practice assertive calendaring. Learn to make conscious choices about your time by asking yourself, “What do I need to do now? Is this the right thing to do for what I want to accomplish?” As I worked with Daria, we began to see that her calendar was controlling her. Daria began to take a more active role in planning and prioritizing what made it onto her calendar. She began to make conscious choices about how she invested her time and began to schedule time for her priorities. And as for her biggest time vampire, the weekly staff meeting, she learned to put the right people together at the right time to discuss projects, and knocked this agenda-less, routine meeting off her – and her staffers’ – calendars. She kept the lines of communication open by asking her staff to provide her with scheduled 5-minute weekly updates for key projects. When it was important to have a full staff meeting, one was scheduled.

Daria also learned to plan time for interruptions. She wanted to maintain an open door policy but not all the time. She found that when she wasn’t always available, her staff often found ways to solve problems successfully without her intervention.

Use the 20-minute rule. Any high priority project can seem overwhelming when it is staring at you head-on. Start by blocking out 20-minute chunks of time on your weekly calendar and dedicate them to initiating your priority project. You might want to invest your first 20-minute session reflecting on project priorities. Think about what you want to do; how important it is; who will be involved; what actions are required; and when you want it to be done. Also note what you will and will not do. At the end of 20-minutes – stop. At that point decide if and when you will commit additional time. You make the choice.

When I work with high potential managers, I coach them to use at least one 20-minute block of time each week to plan and reflect as if they were a senior manager – Would they see the situation differently? What is the most important issue? What contribution can they make now to be a more effective manager?

Commit to start and stop times. Make the most of the minutes in your day by using the simplest tool of all – a clock. Before you start a meeting, for example, make a promise to end on time. Meetings will be more productive when they start and stop on time and you will show respect for the valuable investment of others’ and your own time.

Plan to succeed. What are your time vampires? You can keep them at bay by making conscious choices about how you invest your time. Start now.

This article is based on presentations Mike Martorella, Founder of MMI Communication, gave as a resource expert to the New Jersey area Renaissance Executive Forums. MMI Communication offers individual, face-to-face executive coaching as well as additional resources that support and strengthen our clients’ leadership capabilities. MMI clients become focused, credible leaders who articulate their vision, and inspire and align their organizations to achieve lasting results.