How to Break the Vicious Cycle of Reactive Management by @Get_Lighthouse

While you’re reacting to every little thing coming your way, there are long term problems forming: small team issues you should get out in front of are growing, long term planning that will keep your team focused on the right things aren’t happening, and you may be failing to get the most important of your own work done.

Making matters worse, the more you put off the long term work, the more they create short term issues. You will have to deal with those problems when they boil over and then demand immediate, significant attention, or your team drifts in a direction better planning could have avoided.

A little coaching and quick fixes coming from your regular one-on-ones will prevent a lot of problems from blowing up later on. If they always know they can count on talking to you in a one-on-one, they’re less likely to need to come to you ad-hoc, or worse, bottle something up and never bring it up to you.

As a manager, you need time to think at a high level about priorities, projects, and your team. Unfortunately, you can’t do that in the 5 minutes between other meetings and people popping into your office.

Open slots on a calendar have a knack for being filled up.  Take back your time by scheduling your creative time (ideally 90 min blocks) and make your door “open” at set times (some call them office hours) that your team can count on, but that doesn’t consume your whole day.  You’ll be surprised how much you can get done by doing this.

Intel tried this method of blocking off time for focused work and found that not only did workers love it, but the results were the development of new, patentable technology with just a few hours a week of this time.

Your time is valuable. Your calendar determines how you invest it.