Taking Back Time: Leadership Strategies for Busy Executives

This is a written Transcription for the Leadership Hustle episode about Taking Back Time: Leadership Strategies for Busy Executives, from Season 1 Episode 34.

Listen to the full episode below, or click here to listen on your podcast platform of choice.

Transcript:

Andrea Frederickson: There never seems to be enough time, but have you ever thought it might be your fault? In this episode of The Leadership Hustle, we'll give you techniques to give you time back in your day. Hello and welcome to the Leadership Hustle for executives whose companies are growing fast and need leaders who are ready. Welcome to this episode of The Leadership Hustle. I'm Andrea Fredrickson and I'm joined today with Ashley Hill. Hello. Glad you're here today. Today we are addressing this concept of other people controlling our schedules, which I know never happens. No, never. So. So just talking to a lady. A couple of weeks ago, I was doing a coaching conversation with her, and she was talking about how. Even when she's driving home, even when she's at home, she's got people who are on, you know, asking for her information and input all the time. And like, literally she has zero time to do her technical job. And so, um, what was interesting was any any kind of thought that I had, she couldn't get her head wrapped around it and it was like, yeah, I can't do that. Yeah, I can't do that. Yeah, I can't do that. Well, since then, since we've talked to her, um, she's been able to put a few things into place and, um, has made some progress and feels a lot of really good about that. And so I'm pretty sure I'm guessing that when you ask people, so how are they doing? They're saying, I'm busy.

Andrea Frederickson: Oh yeah. Really busy. Yes, things are crazy busy. And it's like, I don't know why that is. Everybody's stock answer. In fact, somebody asked me that question this morning and said, I'm busy. It's good busy, but I'm busy. Busy. Yeah. I'm like, but I'm other things too. Yeah. How are you? I'm happy. Yeah. I can come up with something different here. Yeah. Rather than say I'm busy referencing our activities. But so, you know, when we've come into this society, that into a society that is very reactionary, where, you know, um, we wake up in the morning, we're looking at our emails and we're responding to different things, and we're not even putting a plan together for the day until after. We may have looked through emails or responded to half a dozen texts or whatever it is that's going on. And I really think that if you know, we can, we can. We have a we have a short episode here of how do we? Manage this process when other people are controlling us. Right, yes. And when we teach time management, we actually say there is no such thing as time management. It's self management. Yes. And people look at me like I have three heads when I say that. Yes. Well, I don't have any choice really.

Michelle Hill: Well it's it's self awareness. It's self management. It's boundaries because we condition people to interact with us. So we teach them we teach them. So if I'm always responding to your messages, your texts, your emails, 24 over seven people know they can just now reach me. 24 seven if I always let people walk into my space, whether that's an office or a cube, whatever that is. Right? Um, or answering teams. You know, if I'm remote, I'm conditioning them that I'm always available, right. Versus setting some boundaries, which kind of kind of goes back to, um, focus time versus collaborative time. It's the same concept, but it's setting those boundaries so people, oh, she's available or I or I need to make sure I, you know, I know when she's available versus just this random open door policy. And I think there's a, I think there's this fear in some organizations that if I don't have an open door policy, then I'm rude or I'm not helpful. And it's conditioning people that that open door policy is actually kind of unhealthy and less productive, more reactive. Right.

Andrea Frederickson: It's so interesting. You brought up open door policy just as it's coming in my head. And I just thought.

Michelle Hill: Of it myself, too. So, um.

Andrea Frederickson: But you know that the open door policy means they can get you when they need you. Yes. Not 24 seven. It's it's kind of those, those kinds of situations. And so, um, and you hear people say, I need to be available for my, my employees. We do, we do, but we need to set some boundaries. There's some things that we need to do with those boundaries that help people manage themselves. Because a lot of times they're not managing their schedule, they're not managing, you know, what they're doing in the time that's allowed. And so for their their reacting. And so a lack of planning on their part is, is creating an inconvenience or a crisis on my part. And it's like it shouldn't. Right. So what are some of the boundary techniques that that you talk to, um, other leaders about that people have found helpful helpful?

Michelle Hill: Um, so I do find even though, again, I'm so unstructured, but, uh, putting a time management, not time management, I'm sorry, but a, you know, tracking your time for a while to find out. Really, where am I spending my time? What kind of boundaries have I unconsciously created versus where do I need to be intentional? Right. Um, because when you track your time, you can look at this window of of time, which a good couple weeks to a month is helpful. Just one week is a snapshot doesn't always give you a full perspective, right? But I think it's important to find out when is there flow of people. If you're managing people or people are supposed to come to you, right. Um, when are the when are the high needs demands versus not? So if we just think about environments sometimes it's the beginning of the day. It might be midday or end day it might be if there's shift exchanges like making sure that, okay, that's going to be when I need to be more collaborative, I need to be more available, I need to be available. And I'm going to work on things that don't take a lot of thought. Those routine things that I can do over and over again, and then looking for those pockets of the day where I'm going to block off because that's when my focus time, that's when I need to make sure that I can get the things done that I need to get done.

Michelle Hill: And, um, and then creating those boundaries where you're communicating it to people that you utilize your calendar, but not everyone is going to look at your calendar. So utilize your calendar of this is time when I'm available versus this is time when I'm not available. Um, and you may be doing whatever during that time, but that's when you want to protect people from walking in. Right. Um, or stopping you. Um, but then if you're in person, it can be, um, communicating in a visual way. So whether that is colors red, green, you know, come on in. So you can have a cube have it. Like if you have short cubes, have it at the top of the cube where it's simply flipping back and forth red, green. And people know if it's red, I will shoot them a message or schedule a meeting. If it's green, I'll walk on it. Right. Uh, and.

Andrea Frederickson: You have to teach.

Michelle Hill: People that. Yes. And then have a communication board if you want even to, depending on what's going on, where people can leave you a note or you can communicate time on there if you if you feel more of that, it's it's more helpful for your audience to let that they know that you're going to be available at 1:00 so they know to come back or they know to shoot you an email. I think also letting people know when they want to meet with you, if it's something that's not a fire, so there's no injury, there's not a physical fire. Um, it's something that, you know, I can be more proactive. Just schedule it on my calendar, look at my calendar and schedule it. Um, if it's. That's hot or, you know, whether or not I'm the reason it's hot, that I'm the reason that it was delayed or whatever. Uh, then I need to look at when are you going to be available?

Andrea Frederickson: Well, so you bring up a couple of really interesting things where like, let's look at the calendar and schedule it. What if it's already back to back meetings. Right. And people are saying, but I can't find a place on your calendar to do this. And it's just it just takes a minute. Right. And people do that all the time.

Michelle Hill: And but it's never a minute.

Andrea Frederickson: It's never.

Michelle Hill: A minute, it's never a minute, it's.

Andrea Frederickson: Never a minute.

Michelle Hill: And then if I'm in the middle of working on something that's really focused now, I've lost whatever I was thinking about. Right? And I have to get back to there. And now you're increasing mistakes. You're increasing how long it takes you to do it, actually. Right. So.

Andrea Frederickson: So, um, I've often given people shoot them, shoot them an instant message, shoot them a text or some kind of message and say, I'm looking for 15 minutes on your schedule. I can't find it. Can you help me out? Yes. Right. Yes. That that's usually helpful too, is, um, I've had people set what I call office hours. That every day from this time to this time. This is where I'm. I'm taking drop bys, all that stuff. So whatever I'm doing during that time can be interrupted. Um, that I can that I can do that if you see me out and about walking. Okay. But you only get between wherever we're walking and to wherever I'm walking. Be careful. That's it. Right. Because they may follow.

Michelle Hill: You in other places.

Andrea Frederickson: Right? And they do. Right. But you only get that much time. Do not follow me into the restroom. Yeah, right. We don't want to do that. Um, but I think that that one of the biggest issues related to this is even when people put these boundaries in place and they educate them, educate their coworkers that they are not disciplined enough themselves to follow through. So somebody walks by and says, you got a minute? And he's like. Right.

Michelle Hill: But yet your do not disturb. Do not.

Andrea Frederickson: Disturb. Yes.

Michelle Hill: So when you tell him to come on in. What are you doing?

Andrea Frederickson: He's just rewarded them for doing exactly what you told them not to do.

Michelle Hill: Exactly. And so then they're going to continue doing it.

Andrea Frederickson: Right and not. And again, saying and not giving them say I've got 15 minutes, you know, or I'm driving between this appointment and that appointment here's all you got. Right. And I was like, I've got one minute and people and letting people know I've got one minute left. You know, give me some people that because otherwise people think out loud and they just walk through the process or they they're venting. It's like, is this well.

Michelle Hill: And I think if you are responsible for people that's in, you know, it's a choice. I always tell people that if you want to go down the path to be responsible for people, then you need to have available time. You can't be. You should not be back to back to back to back to back. Right in that in that theory. Right. That it's like I need to make sure that I'm available for my people. And especially depending if you have a new person or not. Right. And if you do have a new person who's the second person they go to, that is someone that that can also help them, right? Because a new person is going to need some guidance. But um, being becoming a little more disciplined on what are my responsibilities and if one of them includes prioritizing people that I now am in charge, um, in charge of to get things done, I need to make sure that I am. Doing what I need to do to to protect some time to be available.

Andrea Frederickson: Another thing I'm noticing people not doing is saying I won't be attending that meeting, or I will be sending a another person in my place to attend this meeting.

Michelle Hill: A great growth opportunity for them.

Andrea Frederickson: And but people are like they they've got a severe case of FOMO and and they don't want to be looked at as not being a team player and things like that. It's like I.

Michelle Hill: I think it's.

Andrea Frederickson: I won't be at this. It can't even be. I'm double booked. It doesn't make any difference what the reason is. It's kind of like when people give me excuses as to why they're not going to be someplace. I don't really care. I just know you're not going to be going to be there. Correct. And so less is more in some cases, um, or saying I'm going to be there, but I can be there for the first 15 minutes or, you know, it's like putting some boundaries into place and even to the point where if people are asking you to be at some meeting, it's like, tell me what the agenda is, tell me what part you want me to play, what what's my role and responsibility there? Because you can say I'll be leaving at 1130 as opposed to staying here till noon, or whatever the case may be.

Michelle Hill: I'll need to leave.

Andrea Frederickson: There's a discipline that we have to put into place, but we have to follow through with the discipline, and that takes time. And it takes effort, I should say. It takes effort to do that. But I've watched people look for where can I find an extra hour this week? And then where can I find an extra half an hour every day? And they start when they start looking for it? Because what you look for, you find they find ways to do that. So stop and think about this right before you go on vacation. You are able to get way more stuff done before you leave because you know you can't put it off because you're not going to be available. You're much more disciplined about what appointments you'll take, about how much time you have to talk about something you are organizing and structuring your your hours and your work schedule. I mean, you're following the discipline of doing that.

Michelle Hill: It's kind of, I think, but people expand their hours though, too.

Andrea Frederickson: In some cases, they expand where they're working. They expand their hours later to those hours were already that way anyway. Could be right. And so we tend to be when when there's more time allowed for it, then we expand those hours. It's like, no, I'm only I'm working. 40 hours this week. I'm working 50 hours. This week I'm working 45 hours this week, whatever it is like. Okay, so how do you create that discipline? Blocking off time, making sure that you set office hour times, making sure that people have to set an appointment to come talk to you, making sure if they're having difficulties, that they can reach you. But what is it that they need from you and setting up some of those things? And then if you if they need an accountability partner, have somebody to talk to, whether it's a coach, whether it's a coworker, I'm still struggling with this. What ideas do you have? Because sometimes when we're stuck in the middle of it, it's really hard to see, like, where can I find 15 minutes here, or can I find 15 minutes here?

Michelle Hill: Well, I think you also have to educate your people what you're doing because mixed messages, there's definitely a huge opportunity for people to think you're annoyed, not happy mad, whatever it is. Negative, right? Sure, sure. But also asking people to hold you accountable. This is what I'm working on. Hold me accountable and when either one of us slip, we'll hold each other accountable. Because, you know, if someone walks into your space and and if you've set the boundaries that from 11 to 12 is my focus time. And now you just knock on my door and peek your head in, which happens. And I even have my red sign on and that I'll be back at noon or one or whatever it is. Right? And you peek your head in. My response can be, is there a fire? Is there an emergency? Nope. Okay, come back at one right? I can then that way. And it's not personal. It's just that's what we agreed on. Right.

Andrea Frederickson: But I also not but I and I also think that talking about it like that also can teach the other person. Maybe they're doing the same kinds of things that they are not planning. They're reacting. And so, you know, how do we put some things into place? You know, that's one of the things that over the, you know, last few years that have seems to be a huge issue is people will schedule things. But they don't plan. And there's a big difference between if I have to have something done next week, am I waiting until the night before? Because, oh crap, I didn't have time. Like, no, you didn't plan time to get something done to make sure those things were happening. So, you know, I really think that. When other people are planning your time. Is is a is a fun title for this particular episode, because we think that we're kind of at the mercy of everybody else, that everybody else controls our time. We still have the choice. Everything we do is a choice. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Leadership Hustle. When you're looking for more resources on the development of your leaders, don't forget to check us out at revel Group.com.