{"id":5996,"date":"2018-01-05T05:45:40","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T11:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=5996"},"modified":"2018-01-05T05:45:40","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T11:45:40","slug":"the-3-biggest-time-wasters-in-a-leaders-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/05\/the-3-biggest-time-wasters-in-a-leaders-day-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The 3 Biggest Time Wasters in a Leader\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are forces at work every day conspiring to steal your day away from you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every leader starts the day with the same 24 hours as every other leader on planet earth. But for the most effective leaders I know, they make it the highest priority to identify those time-wasters that can steal your day, and they work ruthlessly to eliminate those elements out of their day.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In my experience, these are three of the most perilous time wasters any leader can encounter:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Unmanaged emails<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Email can be a strategic leadership tool. Or it can be one of your greatest time wasters. It\u2019s all how you manage it.<\/p>\n

Volumes have been written by very smart people on the topic, but as a start,<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Turn off your email prompts. No bells, buzzers, whistles or beeps to alert you that an email has arrived.<\/li>\n
  • Check your email no more than 2 or 3 times per day.<\/li>\n
  • Make the \u201cdelete\u201d button your best friend. Most emails do not require action nor a reply.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    2. \u201cCheck-ins\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    If you don\u2019t have a clear, compelling, specific reason for a meeting, don\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n

    If there is no problem in front of you that needs to be solved, don\u2019t waste your time, nor the time of others, by sitting around a table for 30 or 60 minutes.<\/p>\n

    And \u201cchecking in\u201d is not an acceptable reason to meet.<\/p>\n

    There is an important time and place for exchanging pleasantries and catching up on personal news. But a \u201cprime time\u201d meeting is not the place.<\/p>\n

    3. Your \u201cpressure-escape\u201d place.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    When the pressure is on, every leader has an activity they are drawn to that seems to alleviate the stress.<\/p>\n

    For some it\u2019s drawing org charts.<\/p>\n

    For others it\u2019s doing paper work.<\/p>\n

    The point is, most of these escapes are not productive activities. They simply assuage the feelings of pressure for a while.<\/p>\n

    Know what your pressure-escape place is. And minimize your time there.<\/p>\n

    How and where you spend your time can be the \u201cleadership ball game\u201d in terms of your effectiveness.<\/p>\n

    So be aware of the time wasters that can creep into your day, and just go to war to eradicate them.<\/p>\n

    It can be the first step in taking back your day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There are forces at work every day conspiring to steal your day away from you. Every leader starts the day with the same 24 hours as every other leader on planet earth. But for the most effective leaders I know, they make it the highest priority to identify those time-wasters that can steal your day,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[738,478,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5997,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5996\/revisions\/5997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}