Issue 6: Time Boundaries

One Concept: Time Boundaries

I cannot remember when a boss took something off my plate during my career. It took me a while to understand that most people can do anything but not everything simultaneously. Being more selfish with our schedule is a form of self-care that allows us the space to think, recharge, and lead our teams with more energy and focus.

By creating protected blocks of time on our schedules, we teach others to focus on the essential things that assure success, not on being busy and humble bragging about being in 30 meetings this week. Setting boundaries may be helpful if you are regularly late to back-to-back meetings or spend the first five minutes figuring out what the meeting is about.

Because people are watching, setting time boundaries ripples through the team. If you find that you celebrate a meeting ending early, it’s time to interrupt the pattern and set a new standard. Be selfish. If meetings aren’t serving their purpose, redesign, cancel, or stop attending them. Leaders don’t exist to be busy. We exist to deliver results.

Two strategies:

1. Stop thinking of boundaries in the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ binary and add ‘not yet’ to your options. Many bosses underestimate the work it takes to deliver quality work and create an unreasonable deadline. Try this: I have several priorities this week that require my attention. Does next Thursday work for you? A typical response is, no problem, I thought this would be quick.

2. Maintain a 1-page sheet with this month’s key initiatives and projects. When someone asks to add an activity, review the list and decide if there is capacity, or something needs to stop or move to the right. With a boss, it may help to share the priorities and ask where they believe the new thing fits.

Three questions:

1. Where is a 1-hour block that I can label Do Not Schedule on my calendar this week?

2. Looking at my monthly calendar, which meetings can I cancel or delegate that aren’t essential to meeting our commitments?

3. What do I spend time doing out of habit that no longer serves me or the team?

?