Taking Control of Your Calendar: Become a Master at Prioritization
Are you constantly jumping from one meeting to another, responding to endless Slack messages while trying to deliver quality work? If you're like most corporate leaders today, you're caught in an exhausting cycle of reactivity that leaves you feeling more like a professional juggler than a strategic leader.
The Multitasking Trap
In today's fast-paced business environment, the pressure to handle everything simultaneously is overwhelming. We find ourselves checking emails during meetings, using five-minute breaks to hastily complete deliverables, and constantly context-switching between tasks. This perpetual multitasking isn't just inefficient—it's actively undermining your executive presence and effectiveness as a leader.
Think about the most impressive executives you've encountered. Are they frantically multitasking during meetings? Are they constantly glued to their phones? Probably not. True executive presence comes from being fully present and engaged in the moment, something that's impossible when we're trying to do everything at once.
The High Achiever's Dilemma
Here's an uncomfortable truth: the very habits that got you to your current position might be holding you back from reaching the next level. As high achievers, we've built our careers on being responsive, reliable, and excellent at delivering what's asked of us. But at some point, simply meeting expectations—no matter how well—stops being enough to differentiate us.
Breaking Free: The Coffee Break Solution
The answer isn't better prioritization of reactive tasks—it's stepping back entirely to gain perspective. Enter what I call the Coffee Break Strategy. This isn't about caffeine; it's about deliberately removing yourself from the daily chaos to ask crucial questions. These questions aren’t easy to answer, but they’re worth it.
What initiatives would truly move the needle for my team and organization?
Where can I make unique, strategic contributions vs. just meeting expectations?
What high-impact projects am I neglecting while responding to daily urgencies?
Practical Steps for Reclaiming Your Calendar
The concept of “Big Rocks”, from The 7 Habits of High Effective People, is simple but vastly under-applied. Use it to grow your impact (watch a quick example if you aren’t familiar).
Adopt the "big rocks" principle: Schedule your most important strategic initiatives first, letting smaller tasks fill the gaps around them.
Block time for strategic work. Treat these like you would any other important meeting.
Accept that some "sand" (low-impact tasks) might spill out of your jar—and that's okay. Better to miss a few minor requests than to sacrifice strategic impact.
Practice being fully present in meetings rather than multitasking. This builds your executive presence while improving the quality of your contributions. If it’s not worth being fully present, it may not be worth attending at all.
The Path Forward
Transforming from reactive to strategic leadership isn't just about time management—it's about mindset. It requires courage to disappoint people in small ways to deliver something bigger and more meaningful. It means trusting that your value comes not from responding to everything, but from driving significant change and progress in your organization.
Start small. Take a coffee break.
Step away from your desk, gain perspective, and identify one strategic initiative you can drive.
Your calendar—and your career—will thank you for it.
