The Time Management Toolkit for Busy CEOs

And the meeting load

• The same research puts 72% of total work time in meetings, averaging 37 meetings a week.

Four ways to structure the day

1. Pick three to-dos. Three critical tasks — what a winning day looks like. Three, so the list stays real.
2. Write them down. The act of writing fixes them. Whiteboard or desk planner, somewhere you see them all day.
3. Limit bookable time to a few hours a day. It conditions your team to bring you the high-impact problems and frees the rest for thinking.
4. Time-block the calendar. Make the appointment with yourself, and treat those blocks as non-negotiable.

Four rules

1. Get clear before you walk in. Purpose, agenda, desired outcome.
2. Be present. Don’t multitask through it. Presence is most of productivity in a room.
3. Limit the time. Meetings expand to fill what you give them. Park new topics on a list for another day.
4. Ask whether it needs to be a meeting at all. Debate, brainstorm and introductions justify one. Status usually doesn’t — a written update will do.

Four techniques

1. Clear the junk. Unsubscribe from everything you can, then scan subjects and delete repetitive or unimportant mail immediately.
2. Ask whether a reply is needed. CEOs get copied on a lot that doesn’t need them. When you do reply, skip reply-all and write to the people who will move it.
3. Delegate reading and replying. Have an assistant triage, flag what needs you personally, and handle the rest.
4. Accept that almost nothing is urgent. Put it down and read it later. Tell your team to text or call if something genuinely can’t wait.

Improving how you hand work off

• Hire people you trust and build a referral culture that brings in more of them.
• Write standard operating procedures so staff can decide independently.
• Start small. Delegate projects you already know you can’t get close to.
• Clarify what and why. Deadlines, outcomes, and room to ask questions.
• Review mid-flight. Have them report back partway; revise goals and metrics then.
• Get buy-in. Ask project leads for their priorities and their own success metrics.
• Keep the compromising tasks. Hard news, vendor conflicts, angry customers — those stay with you.
• Let them find their own way. Set the outcome, not the route.

Five steps

1. Name your purpose for reading it, and keep reminding yourself of it.
2. Read the introduction and the conclusion first, for theme and structure.
3. Decide whether to continue. What is this saying, and does it matter to me? If not, read something else.
4. Read the top of each paragraph, looking for themes, and judge relevance as you go.
5. Scan the rest out of order for what’s actually useful to you.

One more thing

• Set a timer before you start, so you’re not watching the clock while you read.

Five ways to start

From Vistage speaker Amy Sandler and Vistage Chairs David Galowich and Cindy Mascheroni

1. Use an app. Headspace, Calm, Happify and Simple Habit are the usual starting points.
2. Take three slow breaths at fixed moments — before you walk into the office, as you sit down, before you head home.
3. Bring attention to something you already do. The first cup of coffee works.
4. Be easy on yourself. When you get distracted, leave the distraction and return. That is the practice, not a failure of it.
5. Chase frequency, not duration. How often beats how long. Once the habit holds, work toward 20 minutes a day.

Exercise

Luke Carlson, CEO, Discover Strength

• Strength or resistance training twice a week, 30 minutes — the highest health return for the time spent.
• Ten to twelve repetitions across the major muscle groups, machines or free weights.

Diet

Dan Miller, Vistage speaker

• Natural, unprocessed food. Avoid the synthetic, artificial sweeteners included.
• Water before any other drink.
• Skip soda, smoothies and drinkable sugar — liquid sugar is hard on the liver.

Rest

Giles Watkins, Vistage speaker

• Seven and a half to eight hours a night. On short nights, nap before 3 p.m.
• Cut caffeine, and ideally none after 2 p.m.
• Give yourself an hour at the end of the day to wind down.

Two requirements for useful outside perspective

1. High-performing peers. People who have faced the same challenge and can give you objective advice from experience.
2. Non-competing industries. Peers without your institutional mindset, and without a stake in your market, which is what makes the conversation candid and confidential.