Time Management: Another Key Strategy for Executives to Master
I often told my employees when running the Engaged Enterprise – “activity is not the same as accomplishment” – staying busy and doing a lot does not really equal achieving anything significant. Time management is one of the most critical skills executives need to master. Each of us will need to develop our own strategies on how to manage time. I use a wide range of strategies from being deliberate on how I schedule meetings to working at home without Internet connectivity (this helps me think!) and even taking short breaks (vacations) every 2 months. I urge all of you to read the this post on the Harvard Business Review blog on how Jim Collins manages his time [LINK]
Managing Information for Innovation 
As a manager, skill of specifying things that can be done only by his/herself is important. Otherwise, you would be satisfied with being active, rather than achieving something valuable, because it’s easier to feel satisfied by doing many non-creating tasks than by creating something valuable after a long thinking process. This skill always comes with the skill of giving proper instruction quickly. Many people in managerial position do things that could be done their subordinates, because they lack this skill and it is faster to do tasks by themselves than asking others to do.
When I was working in an administration division of a government agency, I had to answer a lot of phone calls and deal with many troubles (mainly operational troubles) during the day, and I couldn’t have time to think deeply. To save my thinking time, I changed my work schedule to arrive at my office at 7:00 in the morning, and spend two hours for thinking by myself, because I received very few phone calls during the morning time (I couldn’t disconnect my phone or email, though). The limited time forced me to single out things that are really creative and worth doing spending this precious time.
That was a really great article. Time management is definitely something that we should all be practicing. In another article that I read, it stated that one of the reasons why so few executives are skillful managers is because their busy work schedules prevent them to reflect, consider and apply their skills to their job. Here’s the link to the article. It has some good rules and development areas suggestions.
http://blogs.hbr.org/corkindale/2009/08/why_few_executives_are_skilful.html
I believe managing time effectively and reflecting a busy life in time are the common characteristics of successful people. Living in an information-overwhelming world, people wish to use a stopwatch to run against time. However, rather than fill up time with meetings, phone calls and emails, Jim Collins provides a much wiser way to use time efficiently- empty it. This article reminds me that we should regularly stand away endless tasks and life trifles and leave enough time to think and reflect. Otherwise, we may easily get lost in the jungle.
I feel having the perfect work-life balance is what makes a manager very successful in who they are and what they do. Here is an interesting article from Forbes.com where 11 top executives, from the CEO of Digg.com to the U.S. Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, stating the ways they follow to achieve a perfect work-life balance.
http://www.forbes.com/2007/03/19/work-life-ceos-lead-careers-worklife07-cx_hc_0319ceos_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=undefined