Lead Culture with Jenni Catron

223 | Mastering Time Management: Strategies for Avoiding the Administrative Rabbit Hole

• Art of Leadership Network

Share episode

Struggling with the whirlwind of tasks and constantly feel like you're falling down the administrative rabbit hole? Don't worry, we've all been there. But guess what, it doesn't have to be this way. 

In this episode of the Lead Culture Podcast, I share my secret sauce of juggling a series of responsibilities without losing my sanity. From sharing how I prioritize my tasks to my strategy of breaking down mammoth tasks into manageable bites, this episode is all about how I have mastered the art of time management.

But that's not all. I also delve into the importance and benefits of setting boundaries around communication and carving out blocks of time for focused work - a lifesaver for leaders. Oh, and let's not forget about the importance of taking regular breaks to recharge and reset. As a bonus, I reveal how my assistant and I strive to protect an hour in our schedules just for planning and prioritizing, a crucial aspect of effective time management. So, are you ready to step up your productivity game and escape the administrative rabbit hole? 

I want to hear about how you’re leading culture! I’m looking to interview leaders who have invested in their culture and seen a significant improvement. If that’s you, email me at podcast@get4sight.com 

We need your help to get the LeadCulture podcasts in front of more leaders! There are three simple things you can do that truly help us:

  1. Review us on Apple podcasts
  2. Subscribe - we’re available wherever you listen to podcasts.
  3. Share - let your friends know about the podcast by sharing your favorite episode on social media!
Jenni Catron:

Hey friends, I'm your host, Jenny Catron, and this is the Lead Culture Podcast, a proud part of the Art of Leadership Network. Now, here on the podcast, my goal is to coach you to lead yourself well, to lead others better. My team and I at the 4Sight Group are committed to building confident leaders, extraordinary teams and thriving cultures. Each week, we'll take a deep dive into a leadership or culture topic that will give you the tools you need to lead with clarity and confidence and build a thriving team.

Jenni Catron:

Now, today, I want to talk about a topic that challenges the best of leaders. That topic is the administrative rabbit hole. Now, what do I mean by that? Exactly? What I mean is our inability to organize our time and maximize our efforts and really guard our priorities. I bet you get this right and, if you're like me, you're fighting to get back into a semblance of a routine for the fall. Do you feel that, right, summer vacations are over, kids are back in school and you need to be getting back to a routine, and yet I don't know about you, but I've found myself struggling with this a bit right, like I just have this resistance to fully getting back to my routine. It's like I want to hold on to some of those little pieces of summer. Now, the challenge with a routine is that it typically works for a season and then it becomes a little monotonous, doesn't it? Now, in some cases, the routine actually puts us in a rut that keeps us from pursuing, maybe new goals or challenges. So, as most things in leadership, this is a bit of attention to manage, isn't it? So today, I want to share some tried and true behaviors that continue to serve me well as a leader, and this is a list that I'll go back to. If I recognize what I'm noticing in myself right now, that I'm kind of resisting routine a little bit. I need some help, kind of getting back into healthy rhythms of work, and so that's what I want to talk about today how to avoid the administrative rabbit hole. Now, for me, the opportunity to coach, to write, to speak on the topic of leadership is a gift that I hope I never take for granted, and sometimes even just the disruption of routine gives me better perspective on that.

Jenni Catron:

But a productive work rhythm, even for somebody who devotes a lot of time and energy to good leadership development, like makes it a point to study this stuff. A productive work routine is an art to be mastered Right Like. It takes some effort, it takes some intentionality. That administrative rabbit hole, like all the things that kind of gobble up your time and energy, it's real and it's real for all of us. Like we all feel that to some degree. Even those of us who are pretty organized, like some of you, are like I am not administrative, I am not terribly organized, so I really get this. Well, I want to encourage you a little bit that I am pretty administrative, I am pretty organized, and even with that, I can develop some unhealthy habits or I can kind of get caught up in administrative things that really detract me from doing the most important work that I need to be doing. So even with that being a key part of my wiring and my focus as a leader, the administrative rabbit hole is pretty real.

Jenni Catron:

Now, many of you would agree it's key to develop rhythms and routines that help us maintain priorities. I absolutely believe that I think we need those rhythms, we need those routines. They help trigger, you know, help us know where to focus our energy, and there's tons of research around the importance of having some healthy routines. But even when we know better. We can find ourselves down that rabbit hole, overwhelmed, trying to find our way out of just the stuff coming at us. I mean email alone. You guys, right, like, how easily do we get sucked into email? And before we know it, an hour has passed, two hours have passed and we can't quite account for what we actually did.

Jenni Catron:

That's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about the administrative rabbit hole. It's letting yourself get lost into work that can be time consuming but not always the most productive. So here's the thing when circumstances change or responsibilities increase, the issues are still the same, right Like, we still are dealing with some of the same issues, and what we're dealing with in this case is an issue of self-management. So whether I'm managing my business, leading a team, or sitting in my home office with my four-legged friend at my feet, I have to resist that pull to the administrative rabbit hole, the things that really just disrupt my best work. So let me talk about five ways to guard your priorities. So these are five things that you can do to kind of avoid that administrative rabbit hole and help yourself be more purposeful with some of your priorities, how you organize, how you deal with even some of the administration.

Jenni Catron:

So the first thing before you begin your day determine your priorities, right? So before you even start the day, I want you to know what's the most important work that I can do. You might set these priorities as you wrap up the previous day. I think that's always a good practice. Michael Hyatt, in his full-focus planner, talks about that, and if you use a full-focus planner, like I do, you have your big three things for the day. It helps you determine your priorities. So use a tool, and it could just be a simple planner, it could be just a piece of paper, it could be a note on your computer. I don't care what you use, but know your priorities before you go into the day, before you get caught up in the Slack messages coming in or the emails that are pinging. You know your priorities for the day. So, whether you do that the night before, whether you do it in the morning, before you get started, whatever you do, define your priorities before you sit down and before you open your computer, before you start digging into the different requests on your phone. Know your priorities, you guys. This alone is a game changer, because everything's vying for your time and attention, isn't it? And so when you know your priorities, you are already helping yourself mentally organize or prepare your day or know where to give your time and energy.

Jenni Catron:

Number two predetermine when you check emails and how you structure your workflow. So, guys, you have to manage your emails and not allow email to manage you. I cannot overemphasize this, because opening email puts us in reactionary mode. We are reacting to everybody else's requests and priorities, and so then we're defaulting on the priorities we just set. And so obviously there are things in email you need to attend to. But predetermine when you check it and put it as like a block on your calendar of like here's my email time and manage your emails so that they don't manage you.

Jenni Catron:

Consistently reacting to emails will put your days productivity in danger. Before you even think about it, right Before you've even gotten to lunch, your day is off the rails because you've spent time down the email rabbit hole. And so predetermine when am I checking emails? And I'm very upfront with this with my team of. I'm not checking emails incessantly, I'm checking emails at a couple of points throughout the day. Email to me is not an urgent tool, it is an important tool, and my internal conviction is that I wanna respond to emails typically within 24 hours, sometimes depending on the nature of the email. But I wanna give people at least a response within 24 hours, barring it's the weekend or I'm on vacation, something like that, and then you're gonna have out of office assistance on there to help communicate. But I'm not going to live in my email because when I live in my email then everybody else's priorities take over and trump my priorities.

Jenni Catron:

Number three map out your schedule each day. So some of you you have work that everything is scheduled. My work is like that. Most everything on my calendar is scheduled because I often have appointments with leaders that I'm working with, leaders that I'm talking to about doing some work with, so everything becomes an appointment on my schedule. But for some of you that's not how your day works. You have a lot more of independent work. I want you to actually schedule when you're doing what you're doing. So you've determined those priorities. You've determined when you need to look at email. Your work day should have a schedule Like you should know what you're doing when.

Jenni Catron:

Now I'm pretty competitive you probably know that if you've listened for some time and I'm super goal oriented. So I begin each day by mapping out my time. I account for pretty much every 30 minute window on my calendar and then I challenge myself to stay on schedule. If I only have 30 minutes to check and respond to emails, it's amazing how fast I can clean out my inbox If I know I've got 30 minutes. I need to tackle what's here. Who do I need to respond to? What do I need to forward? What do I need to delegate? What do I need to put on a to-do list for later? Like, take 30 minutes to like power through that and then I can move on. So putting time limits on tasks will keep you moving forward quickly, guys.

Jenni Catron:

I can't overemphasize this, that putting time limits. So I'll put on my calendar. I have an hour to prepare and record my podcast for the day Now. It will take me at least 20 minutes to record it alone. So I'm using those other 40 minutes to synthesize exactly what I need to say. Make sure my script is lined out. Make sure that anything that I need to be highlighting all the little details around producing the podcast, can get done within that hour. Now, depending on the nature of if I'm doing an interview and there's more prep work, then I might have more time that's required. But basically what I'm saying here is that I'm looking at everything I need to do and I'm giving it a fair amount of time. I'm not just putting it on my to-do list randomly and going, okay, I'll kind of get to it eventually, like it has a scheduled time block. Map out your schedule each day. It will be fascinating for you to see what you're able to accomplish when you give yourself a little bit of time constraints and you have a very clear schedule for the day. Now.

Jenni Catron:

Number four ways to guard your priorities is change your scenery. Now, this is a big one for me, you guys, because when I'm not traveling or working with a client or speaking at an event, I am mostly working from my home office, and so I can quickly get antsy and bored and therefore I lose focus simply because I've been in the same place for too long. Right, like I've just been in the same place for too long. Some of you that I work with on a regular basis, you know this right, because sometimes I'm in my office, sometimes I'm on my front porch, sometimes I'm on my in my sunroom, because I need a change of scenery, and so just know that about yourself and be mindful of when do you need to change your scenery? This is something you could map in your schedule. So if you've been in the same place for too long, you've got to know how to change where you work throughout the day to just give you a little bit of life and energy.

Jenni Catron:

One of my favorite all time quotes is from Pastor Mark Batterson. He says change of place plus change of pace equals change of perspective. So when you feel yourself getting antsy right Like you're just kind of antsy, you're distracted, you're having trouble focusing you might need to change it up. So sometimes what I'll do is, if I have a chunk of time where I don't have to be on Zoom calls, then I might go to a local coffee shop and get like there's things on my calendar that I've already mapped out on my schedule that are things that I could do from a different location. So I will plan for that. And it creates just a little bit of disruption healthy disruption in my routine. That helps me stay focused. But stay focused on those things I need to accomplish.

Jenni Catron:

And then, number five do what only you can do. And here's what I want you to hear Do that first. So do what only you can do and do that first. So this really brings us back to that first point about determining your priorities, but it's worth repeating from a different angle. We can get lost down the administrative rabbit hole when we lack the discipline to do the hard things first, right. So it's like we kind of jump in and we do the easy things first. This is why email gets our attention sometimes. First thing right, because it's kind of easy and we're kind of curious what came in who's? You know who's reached out to me? I get that. But determine your priorities first and then do what only you can do and do that first.

Jenni Catron:

It's easy to be lured by a sense of accomplishment when we check a few things off a list rather than spending time on one major priority and the thing that only you can do. So when you're thinking about those priorities for the day, what are the things that only I can do right? They're the things that only I can do. It is my highest and best contribution to the team. The team is counting on me to do this thing right and then tackle that first, because the sense of accomplishment that comes from doing the hard things first or the very meaningful and productive things first then gives you the momentum to do the other things. So do the big or harder things first, and you're going to feel refreshed and energized by that and then, especially if then you're a little tired later in the day, then you're doing the easy things. You are responding to some of those emails you need to respond to. So pay attention. Kari Newhoff and his work and his latest book talks about your energy and knowing when you have your best energy. Well, pay attention to that and do your most challenging, your most focused work in the times where you have the best energy. So paying attention to this stuff is really, really powerful and helps you guard your priorities. So here they are again.

Jenni Catron:

Those five have ways to guard your priorities and avoid that administrative rabbit hole. First, before you begin your day, determine your priorities. Number two predetermine when you're going to check emails and then structure your workflow. Number three map out your schedule each day. Have a clear schedule every day. Number four change the scenery when you need to. And number five do what only you can do and do that work first.

Jenni Catron:

All right, friends, so maybe you're scrambling to get clarity on your priorities and, like the whirlwind keeps you from being purposeful. I want to encourage you not to give up, even if your schedule is packed, because some of you are like Jenny this sounds awesome, except that my schedule is so packed I don't know how to breathe. I don't know how to adjust this and get out of this whirlwind. I want you to take out your calendar right now, as you're listening, if you're driving or you're on the treadmill, like, obviously, pull over, stop, get off, whatever you need to do, but as soon as you can take out your calendar and find at least one hour that you can devote to thinking, planning and prioritizing going, I got to get a handle on this. What is my routine going to be for this fall? And I promise that hour will not be wasted.

Jenni Catron:

I recently did this. I was trying to get back into the rhythm of the fall and I said, ok, I've got to get a handle on this. What are the biggest priorities? And we had set goals and I had key performance indicators for this fall, but I needed to resettle around those and go OK, what does that mean for me? Forsight had its goals, but now what does that mean for me? So, take out your calendar, give yourself an hour to think, to plan, to prioritize, to look at your calendar and go is there anything we need to adjust?

Jenni Catron:

My assistant and I, emily, who is we partner with Belay and use their virtual assistant services. So just a little plug that they are phenomenal. If you need some administrative support, which I highly encourage, emily works with me about 10 or 11 hours a week, so just enough to give me helpful support on the administrative side, and that's one of the things I love about Belay's model. So Emily and I will sit down and we will look at my calendar and go OK, what do we need to block differently, like where do we need to give you more priority time in the mornings for you to work on content and development and some of the big picture work? I've got some book writing to do, so we're constantly going. How do we fight for that? Prioritizing that in your schedule? So you guys, every few months we revisit it, we think, we plan, we prioritize to make sure that I am structuring my time in a way that's most effective for me and, ultimately, for the team. So plan an hour and just do that work, get perspective, zoom out and get a look at what's going on in your schedule and how can you prioritize your time a little bit better. It's the most valuable work you can do for yourself and for your team, so make the time and make it happen. And I'd love to know what are some of your tricks of the trade for keeping yourself focused on the right priorities. Maybe you have some good rhythms and systems. I'd love for you to email me at podcast at getforsightcom. Tell me what works for you and we'll share it with everyone else as well. And then I want to encourage you if this kind of content is the thing that you need more of, or maybe your team needs more of these practical discussions around real problems that every leader faces.

Jenni Catron:

I want to make sure that you have checked out the 4sight Leadership Institute. We designed the Leadership Institute, we launched it back in the spring and we designed it to provide monthly leadership training for the busy leader. We recognize that every one of you have a million things going on, and yet the expectation and the responsibilities of leadership are not lessening. If anything, they are growing. And so the Forsight Leadership Institute is a focused leadership training program designed to equip you with the practical skills to succeed. The practical things like prioritization, time management, how to deal with juggling all your priorities, leading good meetings, et cetera. We really tackle some of those just basic skills we need to lead well. So it includes practical training.

Jenni Catron:

Every month you get one video it's about 10 minutes long from one of our coaches teaching you on a specific topic. Then we do coaching for applications. So we're not going to leave you hanging, because I know you get tons of content and it's not a lack of info, it's a lack of application. So a Forsight coach meets with you monthly as a group. We do a group coaching call and we're helping you apply what you're learning and then we're also holding you accountable to that. So you're getting a weekly email from us saying, hey, how are you doing? Here's a couple of resources to keep you thinking about this, to help you take action on this, because we really want to equip you to thrive in your leadership.

Jenni Catron:

Now here's one of the things I'm loving most about the Leadership Institute is that it really is becoming the leadership development training program for so many teams. So my suspicion is that your organization, if you have a half a dozen, couple dozen or more staff, like typically, you don't have the budget to have a full-time leadership development person building out a leadership training program for your team. Fair enough, I mean, I know that we didn't have that position when I was on some of my previous staff teams. We didn't have that position even with a hundred staff, right? So most of you, your organizations, are not big enough to have somebody dedicated to building out a training program like this. So we've really designed the Foresight Leadership Institute to provide that structure for you. So what you can do is you can enroll all of your leaders into the Leadership Institute they're all going through the content and in the same rhythm and then you can schedule one meeting a month with your team to process and discuss it together for application in your specific organization. And we have found so many teams that are doing that and finding really significant value at a very affordable price. So if that is something you are interested, I want you to go to getforsightcom and check out. When you get to the dropdown, you'll see the Foresight Leadership Institute. Go check it out and see if perhaps it is a resource that would help you, would help your team and keep giving you the tools you need to succeed as a leader.

Jenni Catron:

All right, friends, I am so thrilled you joined me today. Thank you for listening to the Leap Culture podcast. We have just released a survey for everybody who is engaged with Foresight in some way or another, and I would love for you to fill that out. So we'll make sure there's a link to that in the show notes, because we wanna hear what's working for you from 4Sight. We celebrated our seventh anniversary our seventh birthday, I guess, as an organization early this month, and so we are trying to learn and grow and keep serving you well. And so either just email me podcast at get4sightcom and I'll send you the link to the survey, just to put survey in the subject line, or it'll be in the show notes for you to link through and if you take that survey for us, we actually have seven really fabulous gifts we're randomly giving away to people who take the survey, so there's a little incentive there to you know, get entered into, win one of those gifts, because your feedback is a huge gift to us. That would be a great seventh birthday present to me if you would share and give us feedback in the survey.

Jenni Catron:

All right, my friends, thank you for joining us today. Email me a podcast at getforesightcom. Let me know how we can serve you better. Connect with us on Instagram and Facebook at get4sight, and I would love it if you would share this episode with another leader. Maybe there's another leader on your team who you know would benefit from thinking through their priorities. Maybe they get stuck in the administrative rabbit hole, like all of us do from time to time, and this would just help them think differently about how to prioritize their work. Share it with them, leave us a review. I would so appreciate that, and then I will see you back next week for more from LEAD Culture. So keep leading well.