Most productive week ever! ..as a Manager

As an engineer, the work performed is tangible and evident. Progress is visible at the end of each day.
Nevertheless, as a manager, the tasks are more complex. Time is spent facilitating discussions, leading planning sessions, and conducting one-on-ones. The feedback loop is longer and can take months instead of days.
Often, it feels like there is an insurmountable amount of work to be done.
During this Circle, we explored various concepts to increase our capacity and efficiently manage our time.

Transcript

1. Most productive week ever! ..as a Manager linkedin.com/in/diego diego.quiroga@gmail.com Diego Quiroga
2. What are the fundamentals in your role as a Manager?
3. Examine how you spent time over the last three to four weeks Color code, rank your meetings by importance and defragment Create white space (context switches, ad-hoc convos, boards) Avoid back-to-back. Add breaks, block lunch and commute time Define a minimum for a week, and block time for focused work Capture what you intend in daily TODOs. Weekly check vs reality TAMING YOUR CALENDAR
4. Daily block, no alerts. Simple filters, things to Read vs to React Email: long-form, not time-sensitive. Extra context to avoid b/forth Using chat as an asynchronous tool, be explicit when urgent Define communication norms for the team, ensure understanding Review and adopt practices from fully-remote companies ASYNC COMMUNICATION
5. Find which ones to delegate and avoid completely Decide if worth attending when you find yourself multitasking Understand inputs, always have a clear outcome in mind Structure a sequence of multiple sessions if topic is too complex Experiment with the Amazon model (15 min reading before start) Begin and finish on time. Influence others through your behavior MORE ON MEETINGS
6. Five things you can do
7. Sharpen the Saw. Invest the capacity you just created in high quality curated newsletters. Take care of your learning investments You don't need to be in all meetings. Set boundaries Understand that manager work has a longer feedback loop Productivity is a long-term game. REALITY CHECK
8. Your homework: Small improvements add up over time. Look to optimize just one thing every week. Evaluate. Adapt. Repeat.
9. Thank you