Triage: the trick to managing time effectively

I’ve had two conversations in recent weeks with upcoming leaders who were asking me about tricks to manage their time better. While there’s no silver bullet, I want to share how I think about being effective at time management, while also delivering and supporting your team. My single biggest trick is to consistently triage. Triage allows you to separate the most important, the most urgent, and the things that take less time from those that are of less importance or those that aren’t as urgent. 

As a leader I always want to get information to my team as quickly as possible so I’m not a bottleneck. This principle creates the first level of prioritization when I triage. In today’s workplace information is flowing so fast that you’re getting bombarded and it can be difficult to keep up. Part of my approach relies on using heuristics to make fast calls on what needs action immediately. If something requires urgency I try to get to it fast so I can help my team. Due to the speed of incoming requests, I’ve created a system to not lose track because it’s important that I not drop the ball. Since most urgent requests come in Slack, I’ve learned to adapt the “Later” function. I would be lost without this simple function. I’m constantly hitting that bookmark and then revisiting those items whenever time allows. As I return to these “later” items, the first thing I do is evaluate how fast I can turn them around. Some might prioritize based on the importance of the content, but I like to clear my plate and will start on quick turn items that require less attention. The meaty items that I have bookmarked I save for when I have less going on and can dive into them and give them the proper focus. I try to make sure I’m in the right mental mode to go deep on those items. Sometimes I just grok things better when I look at them first thing in the morning or when I have time to clear my head before diving in.

Within the “important but requires a bit more time to digest” bucket, I use the same paradigm of level of attention required. I always try to focus on the things that can be handled quickly. To make this assessment, I ask myself if I can get the gist of what decision or digestion of information is needed at an 80/20 level of effort. In doing this I’m trying to divide up my work to things I can get the essence of by scanning quickly vs the things that I need to really dive into the minute details on. This approach leads to making accurate decisions quickly. Of course I don’t want to sacrifice accuracy, thoughtfulness, or importance for speed. For things that require that higher degree of accuracy and are of high importance I try to carve out distinct time. I’m not great at leaving blocks in my day for these things, but I work on these at times when I’m fresh and can think clearly to dive into the items ensuring they get the focused time and attention they deserve. 

I don’t think these are groundbreaking approaches and in many ways they’re an evolution of the classic urgent vs important 2x2, but I hope they’re helpful!