3 Ways for CEO’s to Manage Their Time (Hint It’s Related to Money)

In a recent Wall Street Journal article there was a series of surveys to CEO’s around the globe asking them how much time they spent in meetings. The majority of the respondents stated that a third of their time was spent in meetings. A survey conducted of Italian CEO’s determined that internal meetings that focused on leadership practices positively affected the bottom line.

The CEO’s that I work with and who are my coaching clients often feel trapped by time. The common element I find with my CEO clients is that they get into a rhythm where they become desensitized to strategic time management.

In other words they become victims of habits and lose sight of the fact that their time is indeed money. Often it only takes a few sessions to review the calendar of a CEO and ask them to provide strategic rationale for every meeting and activity. Once they see that a lot of what they have scheduled is not contributing to overall strategy or profitability they willingly shift their approach to time.

Here are 3 ways for CEO’s to manage their time:

#1- Imagine that every time you agree to a non focused or productive meeting you are paying money out of your own pocket. This small imagination game allows you to ask pointed questions such as: What is the focus of this meeting? Will this meeting contribute to profitability, improved performance of my team or increase innovation? What would be the cost of not having this meeting?

#2- Make meeting with yourself the highest priority in your calendar. When working with my CEO clients we ensure that their calendar includes every time commitment and time set aside for self care. Gym time, family time and quiet time are all scheduled into the daily calendar to ensure that they are treated as high priority commitments. One of the studies mentioned above-he Executive Time Use Project—incorporates time logs kept by CEOs’ personal assistants, who tracked activities lasting more than 15 minutes during a single week selected by the researchers. The biggest desire by the majority of executives surveyed was having ‘alone’ time to think and strategize. I will use my airport time and flying time to journal, create follow up lists on my Ipad and to ‘free think’. I encourage CEO’s to find weekly alone time- this is a high investment of a CEO’s time.

#3- Use the technological tools available to maximize your meetings. Many CEO’s are tech savvy and yet there are still some that I encounter who are not maximizing the tools that they have available to increase their efficiency. Recently I worked with an executive team in the agricultural industry and the CEO is an old school leader who has not developed a high comfort level with all of the technological tools available. His right hand executive however is  tech savvy and sees technology as a leverage tool to maximize his time and output. A common challenge among leadership teams is the discrepancy between adaption to technology. If a CEO doesn’t want to use Face Time or Skype for Iphone because he is not confident with using it- the lack of willingness to use the technology can hinder the rest of the team. The more we include technological solutions in our time management the more we can increase productivity and innovation.