The Workplace Coach

A client was telling me that they have a senior manager who is always late to meetings, arrives flustered and unprepared, gets distracted by emails and messages on her phone during the meeting and often misses work deadlines.  My initial thought was this person sounds like they have too much on their plate.

When I spoke with the senior manager in question, it turns out that she is basically in back-to-back meetings all day every day.  I asked when did she actually get time to do any work, and she explained that she does this after hours at home.  Unsurprisingly, she seemed constantly on edge, stressed and anxious and yes, during our meeting (which she was late for) she kept checking her phone for incoming messages.

We all have the same number of hours in a day. We all have to eat, sleep, work and play. We each get to decide how we allocate our time across the various activities we want or need to get done.  There’s a saying, “If it’s important enough, you will make time for it.”  In other words, you will prioritise and schedule your day accordingly.

In Australia, the National Employment Standards set the maximum weekly hours of work at 38 hours.  You may be required to work additional reasonable hours but you can expect, in most cases, to be compensated for that. I say most cases because often at the more senior levels there will not be monetary compensation for reasonable additional hours but instead there will time off in lieu or some other recognition of effort.

Anyway, we all start the week with 168 hours.  Let’s say that we want to play as much as we work, and sleep as much as we play.  That’s 38 hours for each one and that leaves 54 hours of discretionary time for us to do all of the necessary support activities that allow the other three things to occur.  Things like cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry, gardening, and don’t forget, commuting to and from work (now that we are all being dragged kicking and screaming back to the office).

Now, about my senior manager.  She may well be under the pump and have too much on her plate but what I suspect is that she puts most of the pressure on herself because she is a people pleaser.  She wants everyone to see how efficient she is, she doesn’t want to let anyone down, she wants to meet and exceed everyone’s expectations of her, and as a result, she ends up tying herself in knots and becoming far less effective than she could be.

Unfortunately, like many people these days, this senior manager wears ‘busy’ like a badge of honour. You know those people, when you ask how they are going the response is always “oh, I’m so busy”.  Take some now time to figure out what is really behind your lack of time.  How much of your schedule do you have control over?  How much of it is dictated by someone else?

The good news is that there are some really simple solutions to taking back control of your day.  The catch is that you have to commit to them and make no exceptions.

1. No meetings before 9am or after 4:30pm. (You need some you time)
2. No back-to-back meetings. (Even if they are online)
3. Be punctual arriving and leaving a meeting. (Respect their time and your own)
4. Block out some time every day to do actual work. (Meeting with self)
5. Disconnect when you leave the office. (The law now protects your right to do this)

It also wouldn’t hurt to let people know that this is how you are operating now.  Let people know about these new rules, and how this is going to change your availability to them. Tell them that you are doing this so that you might be more effective in your role and retain your sanity at the same time.  Encourage them to do the same.

If you found this article interesting and would like more insights, opinions or advice on all sorts of people and work-related topics you can check out our blog at The Workplace Coach.