Introduction

We have seen how to capture all your thoughts and centralize all the tasks & incoming requests into a single system. You can now easily overview all the items that must be considered at any point in time.

This section will cover how to better manage your time, learning to prioritize what is important, delegate what you can and most importantly to control your agenda to precisely budget time for meetings and tasks alike.

The core characteristic of managers is that their job is to make sure the people they manage can make progress.

One aspect which is sometimes forgotten is the difference between active and passive tasks. Active tasks are the tasks you perform yourself while passive tasks are tasks that you oversee and make progress independently of your time. One of the key rule for managers is always prioritize passive tasks over active (your) tasks.

In other words, if someone you manage needs your help to make progress, you should always make time to assist them without which you, as the ultimate owner, are slowing down the whole team. Once all the issues have been resolved for your team to make progress, only then can you attend your own tasks.

The major risk is to fall to the other side of the spectrum, helping everyone in your team, sometimes even proactively (which is not always a good thing), without attending your own items. This ultimately leads to long evening and weekends spent working to catch up on your work.