How to cut 10 hours a week of busywork

Are you a busy Team Leader or Manager working too many hours, with too little time for yourself and your family?

Too busy managing your team members’ careers but without time to manage your own?

Are you typically starting and ending your work week in stress mode?

Then it’s time to change that!

Just imagine what it would do for you if you could cut 10 hours out of your work schedule every single week? That’s 40 hours a month – an entire work week! Wouldn't that be nice? What would that do for you? Your family? Your career?

If you feel stressed out or anxious or not all that happy with your current workload, I’d love for you to be less stressed, better rested, happier… And I’m sure your loved ones would, too. Because then you could spend more time with your partner, your spouse, your children, your friends… You could read more, dance more, go out or work out more often. You’d probably also enjoy your job more and feel more enthusiastic about what you want to achieve.

Don’t think that’s an option? – I respectfully disagree. Because I’ve seen many women like you do this before. And with the tool I’ll give you in this article, coupled with a portion of determination and discipline, you can do it, too.

Setting boundaries is of course key to create this change. In a previous article, I talked about setting boundaries in more detail. I suggest you read that article as well so you can start out on the right foot as you implement the strategy I’m describing here.

How it works:

1. List and categorize all your current tasks

Open an Excel sheet.

In the first column, you list all your current tasks and responsibilities. It could look like this, although your list may of course be completely different: Daily management of direct reports, assignment of project tasks, quarterly updates to division heads, annual budget preparation, management of staff data, team members’ 6-month performance reviews, weekly team meetings for status update, overall project coordination, participation in weekly marketing meeting, attendance of quarterly industry conference, client calls, etc.

Create a second column to group your tasks into a specific area, for example: project management, team management, career development, presentations to Executive Team, client acquisition, sales, etc. Needless to say, you will use areas that make the most sense for your specific tasks.

In a third column, determine the type of task, for example: admin, presentation, meeting, etc.

In column 4, you will determine for each task whether it is indispensable. Does the task have to be executed at all? Would there be an impact if it were dropped? – At manager level, all tasks may seem important at first, but you’d be surprised how many tasks my clients have eliminated from their work schedule by using this column. And even if you identify only one superfluous task, it’s worth it. Because every single minute of your time is precious!

In the fifth column, you will resolve if the task is strategic. This means, you evaluate whether executing this task favors your career advancement (or your image in the job market) or not.

You could also add a column 6 here that specifies whether this task is required for you to reach your next specific career goal.

The eighth column should be easy to complete: Do you enjoy performing this task or not?

Now we’re getting to the action columns of your Excel table: Column 8 is for you to decide whether this task could and should be delegated to someone else, whether it’s an existing or new team member, or potentially even someone in a different area, depending on what makes the most sense.

Through this simple process, you will probably identify a number of tasks that could be taken care of by an assistant or an entry-level employee.

You will need to figure out whether you can make that decision yourself or whether it needs to be discussed with other team leaders or your manager. You may need to re-negotiate pieces of your job description, which brings us to step 2:

2. Discuss relevant action steps

As always, you want to be strategic with this. You want to position your suggestions and decisions in a way that make sense to your negotiation partners, whether it’s someone who is taking over a task from you or whether you want to convince your manager that hiring a new team member or delegating a responsibility to a colleague is a great idea. What will be the positive implications of this?

When it comes to tasks that could be carried out by entry-level employees or your team members, positioning the transfer of a task shouldn’t be too challenging, as it’s only logical that you should be doing what you are paid for at your experience level. It just makes business sense, and it can also benefit the growth of your team members… and your own as you learn to let go of unnecessary control and place trust in others as leader are expected to do.

What’s been a benefit you observed when delegating tasks? Leave a comment.

Delegating a responsibility to a peer or another team can be a bit trickier. However, if projects and processes are positively impacted by it and you make a strong case for it, it’s not impossible.

You may have to invest some time and dedication, but as any great investment, it will pay off in the long term. It’ll help you reduce your stress at the workplace, while freeing up time to focus on your own career… and your life outside of work.

3. Make strategic visibility tasks a priority

This is how you cannot only deal with excessive workload but also be more strategic about putting your leader brilliance into the spotlight.

Focus on activities that give you “positive visibility” with the Executive Team, like driving business, meeting with or presenting to decision-makers on a regular basis. This will provide you with additional opportunities to network strategically within your organization so you can not only increase your visibility but also your career options.

Have a story of when you shifted your priorities? Drop it in the comments.

Going forward, consistency is key: No more taking up the slack of your team. No more taking on tasks that land on your desk without carefully evaluating them first. No more tasks that if not done today, could be redundant tomorrow.

Please note that this is not about time management. You cannot manage time. Time just is. It doesn’t allow itself to be managed. That’s why all those attempts to manage time usually end up in huge frustration. Here’s what you can manage: your resources, your activities, and your priorities.

Forget about time management. Manage your priorities instead.

Filling the time you have available at work with what really counts, will most likely also increase your overall job satisfaction. So, schedule those priority activities into your calendar and block time for them, even if they do not involve other people.

Focus on what’s truly important and stop exerting yourself for the wrong reasons at work. When it comes to the quality of your career and life, you have no time to waste.

Want the spreadsheet for all I described above? It'll make it all so much easier. Just DM me and I’ll make sure to send it over.