Every year, the fourth quarter “sneaks” up on me. I do feel the daily passage of time as it occurs but the first 9-10 months still seem to go by relatively quickly in hindsight. Being overall happy with what I accomplish year-on-year is not to say I don’t experience a “reality versus expectation gap” like everybody else. There’s simply too much to do, so for me acknowledging the incomplete parts is both positive motivation and an exercise in humility. If we’re not careful though, the fourth quarter can be notorious for reinforcing feelings of stagnation which I’ve pondered before (Getting Out of a Rut). It also begs the question for some of us: what is “stealing” our time? If we could identify where time is not used well, we’d be better at re-prioritising and closing the reality/expectation gap.

Busy diaries

Being organised and/or busy can create false confidence about the quality of how time is spent. We’ve been around the block enough times to know busyness doesn’t equal productivity nor does a neat schedule reflect appropriate prioritisation. 

What’s in these busy diaries anyway?

Recurring meetings - how many of these are still valid? Some of the meetings we have served an initial trouble-shooting purpose but have since outlived their usefulness. Consider cancelling, re-purposing or reducing time spent on these.

Over-staffed meetings - do you really need to be in all the meetings you’ve been invited to? When was the last time you spoke (to comment, present or ask a question) or were allocated a responsibility thereby anchoring the relevance of your contribution? Do you find yourself dialled in to the meeting but mentally tuned out? If you are the one responsible for setting the meeting agenda: are you respecting other people’s time and setting a tight attendee list? 

Consider excusing yourself from certain meetings in advance if you feel you have nothing to gain, learn or contribute. You could also raise your concerns with the meeting organiser who may decide to revise the agenda to be inclusive of areas where your contributions are relevant. 

The pressure of busy diaries usually triggers conversations about productivity hacks. I have a long list of these but all of us still need to operate from a first principles perspective i.e. productivity hacks are useful once you’ve locked into producing the right things. Otherwise they set you up for doing more in limited time without closing that mighty expectation gap #feelingoverwhelmed.

Upward delegation

Spending time doing other people’s work because they aren’t meeting deadlines or adopting your style is harmful for everyone involved. From your perspective, it leaves you stretched and not adequately developing new capabilities because you keep reaching back to drive deliverables in old areas you’ve mastered. To the colleague whose work you are doing: their development is stunted, it incentivizes them to coast and to continue delegating upward to you. 

Who is enabling who in this unhappy alliance? Do you create the perception around you that you enjoy doing the extra work that should have been done by someone else? Does your boss know that you are covering for others? The answers matter. It’s not only about wasted time. Depending on how your boss perceives this, you could be relegated to being a great team player but not regarded as leadership material. It could also leave you feeling under-appreciated for all you do whereas from your boss’s perspective, he/she could be disappointed you are not putting adequate time into more impactful, strategic work.

Consider a few things here:

Are the deadlines you’ve set realistic for the complexity involved? Give more time if there is no downside and it means others can handle the work without you.

Relax your control settings far enough to accommodate different approaches that are equally effective in getting the job done.

Don’t shrink from holding colleagues accountable. For your own sanity - see what happens if you don’t step in. Does the rest of the team step up? If not, propose a team meeting to diagnose what went wrong. What solutions were proposed to avoid missing deadlines again in future? Notice that there are other ways to get things done without you having to sacrifice yourself in the process. 

Going too many extra miles

It can be beneficial to distinguish yourself to top leadership as an outperformer who works harder than most but everything has its limits. If you’re not careful, you’ll get so overloaded doing things for people who you’re afraid to disappoint that you won’t have time to invest in your personal development, wellbeing or other aspects of your career advancement. Being the favourite does improve your job security, compensation and promotion prospects - that’s probably why you make the effort. However, be wary of gaining in these areas at the expense of honouring promises you made to yourself about your boundaries and other things you’d like to explore. There is almost always a sustainable balance between managing up and managing self but you’ll have to lead that discovery process. Corporate being what it is, most people will keep taking as much as you give for as long as you give it. 

All three of these time sinkholes require you changing tracks from the familiar to make room for scaling up in new domains. That familiarity we find so comforting is rooted in a confidence about our relevance. After all, it’s reassuring to be needed and to know we can meet those needs. 

It’s disorienting at first but yes, …all those meetings and tasks will go on without you 💡!

Some of them might fall away without you on-hand to lead and you’ll need to be okay with that. This will reveal to you what’s optional versus critical in that environment. Your future time management decisions will be better for it. 

At an organisational level, when these types of approaches are institutionalised, they offer scope for everyone to grow in terms of skills, experience and in rank. If that’s currently lacking at scale, solve for your own career first and set the example. 

What time sinkhole affected your productivity this year? 

As you manage your schedule differently going forward, what will you do with the time freed up?