I’m guilty of the multitasking myth and my team has called me out on it. I used to think handling a million things at once made me productive, but really I was just dropping the ball on important conversations. How do you balance being responsive while also giving people your full attention? https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/5-bad-leadership-habits-that-make-you-look-really-unprofessional/91101424
Set office hours. You’re not obligated to respond to every request in real time.
Define what constitutes an emergency as well as a protocol for communicating/escalating emergencies to you. Communicate these to your team as well. Coach/mentor/encourage to handle as many things as they can on their own so that they come to you ONLY when they are absolutely stuck.
Set regular 1x1 with direct reports as well as skip-levels if necessary and train them to bring issues in those allocated hours with you.
Take inventory of your calendar and trim as much unnecessary meetings as possible. Figure out which part of day is your most productive and block 2-3 hours in that part of the day for focused work. For this you can use so-called “pomodoro technique” (Google it) to stay on a task for a certain amount of time, then a quick break, then continue.
Because it is indeed true that multitasking is a myth. It takes your brain a few min to get back to an activity and remember what you had been doing. So if you’re interrupted every 2-5 min, you’re not productive at all. It may feel as if you were at the end of the day, because you feel exhausted. But if you look at the actual outcomes from the day, you won’t see much accomplished.
Good luck! ❤️
I struggle with this as well
So many things come down to time management. You might try doing some brainstorming, jot down what's really important and must be attended to every day, and then every week. And create a schedule where you really keep to what you need to do. It's easy to let things slide and get out of control if you're not making lists and checking things off and making sure you get to what really needs to be done.
Coach
I honestly over the years tried to make myself accountable for 0 action items or as close as possible. Just delegate those. Follow on on big things, conversations, etc. but eventually you'll drop the ball. Including delivering big things. Id rather spend the time coaching the team.
Same here. I used to think being able to context switch and handle a bunch of things at once was my superpower. It is actually also one of my largest detriments. What leaders focus on is what drives priority. Also, being present and focusing on the people and topic in front of you is one of the greatest things a leader can do for their people.