Time management. It’s something many leaders struggle with. It can be very hard to focus on the high-level, strategic work of leadership when people are scheduling meetings in your calendar, popping into your office/emails/texts with questions. Everybody’s vying for your attention.
I’ve always recommended that leaders schedule “sacred time” in their calendars. These are spaces that are blocked off so that no one can schedule anything during those times. At the minimum, I recommend one sacred block per week. Many clients find Friday afternoons perfect for this time. They block out a window of a couple of hours on a standing, recurring basis, and use that time for the deep work that every leader must do.
If you don’t block off this time for yourself, you’ll end up deep in the weeds. I’ve seen it a thousand times. It’s not that you’re *never* supposed to deal with the “in the weeds” questions, but rather that you *must* make time for the bigger leadership work, too (and avoid being in the weeds wherever possible).
What do you do during this time?
You invest in deep thinking about the organization, its direction, the strategic focus, and the bigger picture. Where are you in the marketplace, are you still on mission, is the organization healthy, and are you a good leader? These are the questions that you address during this time. It’s not just that you need to run the day or the day will run you. You also have to run your organization or it’ll run you.
In fact, I would bet money on it. If you don’t block “sacred time” (call it whatever you want) on your calendar, if you don’t have that critical, quiet time to reflect and consider the bigger picture, I’m betting you’re spending a lot of time in the weeds. So tell me…do you carve out sacred time?
