Conducting a Time Audit
In the opening essay of Issue #5, I wrote about how Dee Hock, the founder of Visa, believed that just about every manager manages upside down. He preached that great managers spent 50% of their time managing themselves, 25% managing up, 20% managing across, and 5% managing down. In comparison, most actual managers preoccupy themselves with a hell of a lot more downward management than 5% of their time. Peter Drucker, who emphasized managing oneself first, must have inspired Hock. I’ve become borderline obsessed with integrating this idea into my work. One of the best ways to begin managing yourself is to look at how you spend your time. And so, today’s issue will be about doing just that.
Every CEO, founder, and executive I’ve met periodically struggles to manage their time. Metaphors of spinning plates, plates too full, and being pulled in too many directions collide with feelings of overwhelm and wanting to pull one’s hair out and run away to hide in a corner.
The solution begins with conducting a “Time Audit.” Like all decisions, we need information—data—to make them. To audit your time, you need to do three things with the data on how you spend your time:
