The following is a guest piece by New York Times bestselling author, Kevin Kruse.
Do you ever feel like you know what you should be doing as a leader, but there just isn’t enough time to actually do it?
How do successful people create pockets of time so they can become a leader of people, not just managers of tasks?
I recently had the chance to interview over 200 highly successful people including billionaires, millionaires and many CEOs who were leading small and large teams alike. One of the consistent things I found was that effective leaders are very mindful of time. Most have conscious or unconscious habits and rituals that they use to remain highly productive, without feeling overwhelmed. As Fizzle CEO, Corbett Barr, told me:
I stay productive by developing and maintaining what I call a personal “operating system”, which is a set of processes, tools and checkpoints that define how I get work done every day. The specifics of an operating system differ from person to person, but the important thing is that you have one.
As Barr mentioned above, there is no one-size-fits-all for time management, but after reviewing the practices of hundreds of individuals, I’ve developed a simplified productivity system I call, E-3C. The E stands for Energy, and the three C’s are Capture, Calendar, and Concentrate.
1. Energy
The first step—the most important part of my E-3C system—is “E” for Energy.
You can’t make more time, but you can increase your productivity by increasing your energy, focus and attention. How do you maximize energy?
- Highly productive leaders get enough sleep.
- Highly productive leaders eat energizing foods.
- Highly productive leaders exercise consistently.
- Highly successful people pulse and pause throughout the day to maintain peak performance.
2. Capture
The first “C” in my E-3C system stands for Capture.
You must “capture” everything and anything into a notebook instead of trying to keep things in your head. In a best-case scenario, trying to remember to-dos, to-calls, and to-buys leads to a higher cognitive load and unnecessary stress—worse, it can lead to forgotten, thus uncompleted, tasks.
Highly successful people keep a notebook with them at all times and write down everything they want to remember. In addition to capturing to-do items, they also record notes from calls and meetings, new ideas, lessons learned, favorite quotes, and other things that might need to be referenced in the future.
Think of your notebook as your external brain. The more you put into it, the less filled your biological brain will be! Additionally, this practice improves your effectiveness, as you no longer forget important things to do, can hold other people accountable, and can learn from your accumulated written experiences.
If you are writing things down that you need “to do,” remember: as quickly as possible, you will want to schedule it as an appointment on your…
3. Calendar
The second “C” in my E-3C system stands for Calendar.
What is implied with this step is don’t use a to-do list! If you want “to do” something, immediately schedule it on your calendar.
- Highly productive leaders have clearly identified values, which lead to top priorities and their Most Important Task (MIT). You must time block MIT time on your calendar. Time for other activities that support your top values (e.g., health, relationships, giving back) should also get blocked on your calendar on a recurring basis.
- Highly productive leaders theme days on their calendar, too. At work, Monday might be the day for one-on-one meetings or for a weekly team huddle. Wednesday might be themed as “marketing day” or “product development.”
- Highly productive leaders protect their calendar, knowing and feeling the reality that nothing is more important than time. They say no to anything and everyone who does not align with their goals. They do something only if they aren’t able to drop it, delegate it, or redesign it. They spend time on the 20 percent of things that contribute 80 percent of the value—and they drop the rest.
4. Concentrate
The third “C” in my 3C system stands for Concentrate; there is no room for multi-tasking.
- Highly productive leaders proactively work from their calendar; they don’t react to stimuli like incoming email, social media messages, or “got a minute” meetings.
- Highly productive leaders concentrate on their MIT and other priorities during times of peak energy, typically in the morning.
- Highly productive leaders pulse and pause to maintain concentration and productivity throughout the day. Most take 5 or 10-minute breaks every 30 to 60 minutes.
We cannot lead effectively if we’re constantly racing from meeting to meeting, frazzled and fatigued. It does take time to lead effectively, and it takes mindfulness. If you don’t already have a “personal operating system” that is working for you, I encourage you to experiment with the E-3C system.
Kevin Kruse is a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book is “15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs”. To learn more about Kevin’s writings and his work, visit his website: kevinkruse.com.
Thanks for this post! I needed to read this! It has concrete steps for finding balance at a very hectic time in my work life. It's so easy to get caught up in doing things for others, and forget the importance of taking care of things for ourselves – or at least not making it enough of a priority. Thanks, again!
My pleasure, Subha; I'm delighted to hear that you've found this piece timely and useful for your current workload.
Thanks for this post. I wonder how you relate this to management. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that all the C's are more suited for management than leadership. Or am I missing something?
Hi Laurent,
Thanks for your question. The way this relates to leadership is how they impact how we show up in those daily interactions and where we're really putting our focus. Considering the increasing demands on our time, attention, and resources, it's not surprising to hear that so many leaders are operating in a distracted state.
By being mindful of what we're focusing on by capturing and concentrating on what really matters, along with taking care of how we expend our limited energy and time during the day, we can make sure that we're more productive as a leader, which frankly has less to do with managing tasks and more to do with guiding people forward.
There are several studies out there that have shown that this is exactly what employees want to see more from their leaders, which is why I'm not surprised to see these behaviours being shared by so many of today's successful leaders.
Hope that answers your question, Laurent.
Hi Tanveer,
Thanks for complementing.
I totally agree that mindfulness and the flow are added value, not only to leaders, but for anyone willing to perform better.
Nevertheless, I perceive your examples much more being related to management.
Please let me explain.
Take for instance:
"Highly productive leaders protect their calendar, knowing and feeling the reality that nothing is more important than time. They say no to anything and everyone who does not align with their goals. They do something only if they aren’t able to drop it, delegate it, or redesign it. "
Honestly, I don't see it as leading at all. I used to be an employee and had a handful of managers. I can say that from all of them I only considered one being a leader. (all the others had no clue about the meaning of leading people and were stuck with trying to manage us)
They all used or tried to use diverse techniques to better manage their time and the performance of their employees. Only one put the focus on his employees rather than himself. His objective was to help us employees become more efficient and happy with our work, and of course that resulted in him doing better his job as a manager.
I may have a wrong perception, but for me leading is not about managing your timesheet to get to your goal; it's about inspiring and giving the tools to others to help you achieve your goals.
You said it yourself: "no one person can have all the answers and that the key to succeeding is ensuring that everyone we lead feels a sense of shared ownership in both the vision and in the process."
For me a leader would teach his follower the tools you’re talking about so that they manage their work better. The leader can of course use the same techniques, but that doesn’t make him a good leader. It does however improve his capacity to manage his time and thus be more efficient.
Does good leaders use these techniques? Most probably.
Do these techniques make them better leaders? I don’t think so.
Hi Laurent,
I can see where you're coming from and agree with you that leadership is not about managing our agenda, but leading people. That's why this piece is titled "4 Secrets for Making Time For Leadership" and not "4 Secrets To Being A Better Leader". These steps are not supposed to make you a better leader, but to enable you to actually have the time to lead.
I've met and spoken with several leaders over the course of this year and this is one of the biggest issues leaders face – of how to balance the growing demands on their time, attention, and resources so that they are getting things done while still making time to effectively guide those under their care.
So, again, these techniques are not about making people better leaders but enabling them to have the time to focus on what matters most.
Thanks again, Laurent, for sharing your thoughts on this piece.
Hi Tanveer,
Seems I have scanned the title of the post a bit too fast 🙂
Thanks a lot for your reply, I think this complements very well your article and now I have a clear picture of what you meant.
Hi Laurent,
It's my pleasure; I'm glad this helps to clarify things and again, I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts on this piece.