Have you ever checked your calendar in the morning and thought – Ack! Need get that done! Or scramble to get a meeting organized?
You weren’t looking out far enough. You’ve probably made that mistake a few times, but not often.
The more senior your role, the more scope you’re responsible for, the further out you need to be looking, thinking, and planning.
3 weeks is a minimum for consistently successful leaders, folks. 3 WEEKS. (I’m humbly making that statement as a guy who has repeatedly failed to look out even 3 weeks.)
3 weeks is for tactical preparedness for the stuff everyone can see coming, because it’s on the calendar already or a predictable upcoming process.
What about the important-not-urgent, strategically valuable, no-one-is-asking-but-tremendously-valuable, and playing-the-long-game work? This is the work that distinguishes better leaders from mediocre leaders, and the best managers from the average manager.
I’ve written before about working in 6-weeks (1/2 a business quarter) blocks. That’s long enough to deliver something valuable, but short enough you’ll find it harder to procrastinate. Schedule personal work time and meetings with others so that you can deliver on your 6 week objectives.
If you’re in a mid-level manager position, schedule regular thinking and pondering time to look at 6 months out and 12 months out. Depending on the topic area or your domain of work, you probably also need to think about what could happen in 18 and 24 months.
Senior leaders need to think out even further. Delegate daily and weekly work to others, so you can spend 80% of your time on work that only you can do. Yes, you have to work day to day, but your thinking and planning must be done with a multi-year perspective. Lead yourself first, or deal with the reality that someone far less competent will be leading you day to day.
