4 lessons to master your time as a busy owner.

How I mastered my time as a Fractional CEO and Consultant.

A year ago, I was balancing a lot of competing priorities in my work.

I was a fractional CEO of 2 businesses, leading the growth, strategy, and finances. 
→ Working on each for 10 hours/week.
→ Managing two teams of 7-8 people (15 total).

And I had my consulting business with 3 other clients to support.

All while maintaining my boundary of working less than 40 hours a week.

It was a stressful time because I never had enough time to do everything I wanted for the teams, clients, and businesses.

That forced me to develop strategies for balancing all my responsibilities in my limited time.

Without my schedule, boundaries, and priorities, the work would have overtaken my life!

Here are 4 lessons I learned on time management for busy owners and leaders.

1. Managing team members requires a lot of time but saves significantly more.
→ When your workload feels overwhelming you need to elevate others. 
→ I spent 7 of my 10 CEO hours each week in 1:1s and meetings with the team.
→ That was an investment in helping them operate better without me.

2. The fastest way to save time is to delete or defer tasks and meetings.
→ Urgent problems always feel important until you think about the bigger picture.
→ People will bring you challenges to solve but only a few are worth solving today.
→ Instead of jumping into solving, I learned to ask: 
“How big is this impact?” 
“Is this as urgent as it feels?” 
“What will it cost us to solve right now?”
“What if we wait and do nothing?”

3. Your schedule determines your success. 
→ Leveraging your time creates more results than working long hours. 
→ All my time was intentionally planned and blocked in my calendar.
→ Review your calendar each week to ensure it aligns with your goals.

4. When you set boundaries on your time it forces you to prioritize better.
→ Strategy is choosing the most important things to focus on.
→ Productivity is knowing what not to focus on. 
→ If the work can’t fit in your chosen hours it wasn’t important enough. 

If you’re tired of working more hours than you want, ask yourself:

What team member needs some of my time now so I can save more later?
What tasks/meetings can I delete or defer until they are necessary?
What changes can I make so my schedule works for me?
What boundaries can I set to force better prioritization?