Managing Priorities: Time Management Tips from the Academy for Leadership and Training
11/01/2024 0 Comment
Have you ever noticed how some leaders seem to finish high-stakes work before sunrise, while others scramble all day with little progress?
Leaders often find their days packed with urgent demands, while their strategic priorities take a back seat. Successful leadership is less about hours spent and more about decisions made. At the Academy for Leadership and Training in Miami, this mindset is foundational, prioritizing time is equivalent to prioritizing leadership and impact. Leaders build momentum instead of merely motion by intentionally directing time toward what matters.
Why Time Management Matters in Leadership
Time is still the most democratic resource because everyone has the same 24 hours. But how those hours are spent makes a big difference between professionals who feel overwhelmed and leaders who feel assured. People who don't manage their time well frequently demonstrate it by doing things at the last minute, missing deadlines, and getting more stressed out, rather than failing visibly. Leaders who use their time wisely feel more in control, less stressed, and perceive better results in their work and teams. This is also backed up by empirical study.
A 2021 meta-analysis found that those who are good at managing their time do better at work and feel better about themselves. They also deal with stress at work better. So, many people think that leadership development is safer than it really is if you don't also work on time management. If you don't, decision-making, clarity, or team morale can suffer as a result.
Identify and Set Clear Priorities
When you have too many things to do, it might be hard to tell the difference between what needs to be done right now and what is vital. By putting jobs into four groups, urgent/important, important/not urgent, urgent/not important, and not urgent/not important, the Eisenhower Matrix makes things clearer. Leaders who spend time on quadrant two, which is work that is significant but not urgent, establish plans and teams ahead of time rather than getting caught up in daily emergencies.
One good technique to practice this is to make a list of your top daily tasks and then ask yourself which two or three of these would really assist you in reaching your goals. Then put those on your calendar first. As President Eisenhower famously said, "What is important is rarely urgent." That point of view helps leaders avoid getting caught up in hectic tasks and make room for strategic activity.
Time Management Principles and Techniques
Leaders perform best when they rely on tested structures, rather than pure will. Several well-regarded frameworks provide useful guidance for structuring priorities, energy, and attention.
Pickle Jar Theory
A jar stocked with rocks, pebbles, sand, and water becomes a vivid metaphor for our time. Rocks stand for essential activities, pebbles are secondary tasks, sand covers minor busyness, and water symbolizes downtime or personal needs. Start with scheduling your rocks, your most critical tasks, before filling your day with smaller, less meaningful items.
That way, even if the day ends up full, you’ve honored what matters (and kept your balance), and Clockify and other productivity platforms note that following this sequence helps avoid stress and burnout while maintaining real progress toward priorities, even under pressure.
Pomodoro Technique
This technique was crafted in the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo. The Pomodoro Technique divides work into intervals of about 25 minutes, separated by short breaks. After four such cycles, a longer break follows, helping recharge attention. Such structure helps maintain high focus and reduce mental fatigue, particularly for complex or demanding tasks.
Real Simple and Lifehack both underscore how this method builds momentum and minimizes procrastination: breaking tasks into bite-sized units helps avoid the overwhelm that stalls leaders.
Blocking
This strategy assigns exclusive blocks of your calendar to specific categories of work: strategic thinking, administrative duties, communication, leadership engagement, and so on. When done with discipline, time blocking cuts unnecessary switching and helps preserve mental energy. Studies show people who use calendar-based scheduling complete a higher volume of meaningful tasks and reduce wasted decision time.
Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)
Have you ever noticed that roughly 80% of outcomes stem from 20% of inputs encourages leaders to double down on what truly drives results. Identifying whose tasks or decisions yield the greatest impact helps avoid drowning in effort without reward. Leadership becomes about results rather than activity volume.
Getting Things Done (GTD)
David Allen’s method encourages capturing tasks externally, clarifying what needs action, and then organizing them into systems. That way, leaders escape from mental clutter and instead focus on working on the right things, not just remembering them.
Rapid Planning Method (RPM)
Rather than focusing on what to do, this model emphasizes why it matters. Leaders define desired outcomes and align daily to those outcomes. A result-first mindset shifts work from busy to intentional, linking time to purpose.
Eat That Frog
When a leader tackles the most challenging or emotionally weighty task at first, it energizes the day. Completing a difficult priority early removes dread and clears mental bandwidth for the afternoon. Brian Tracy’s analogy may sound simple, but it remains one of the most effective ways to gain momentum.
Parkinson’s Law
Tasks expand to fill the time allotted. Time-boxing tasks, even imposing artificial deadlines, creates urgency and reduces perfectionist delays. Many leaders finish major work sooner when forced to allocate tight but realistic time frames.
Also Read: Leading with Empathy: Lessons for Challenging Times
How to Set SMART and Realistic Goals
Goal‑setting matters more when goals are clear, trackable, and realistic. SMART goals, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time‑bound, bridge the gap between vision and action. For instance, rather than aiming to "improve team collaboration," a SMART goal might be “hold biweekly departmental check-ins and reduce inter-department follow-up time by 25% this quarter.”
Breaking large objectives into weekly or daily milestones helps maintain progress. A goal to launch a project in three months might include weekly deliverables, such as wireframes, content drafts, and testing rounds, to ensure the timeline stays realistic and the plan doesn’t collapse under delay.
Routine review ensures timeliness. When unexpected issues crop up, say, a resource delay or illness, deadlines get recalibrated instead of abandoned. Leaders who adjust rather than abandon maintain credibility and momentum.
Structure the Day with Planning and Scheduling
Effective leaders often dedicate time the evening before to review tomorrow’s agenda, identifying conflicting demands, scheduling breaks between meetings, and noting high‑value blocks. Time blocking becomes especially powerful when complemented by pre‑planning: the combination ensures priorities get real estate.
Weekly planning sessions help prevent overbooking and allow realistic load balancing. Dedicated weeks often follow themes, strategic tasks in the morning, low-energy admin in late afternoon, and emails batched at specific times. Transition periods between tasks reduce friction and improve flow.
Overcome Common Challenges
Every leader confronts three recurring obstacles: procrastination, distractions, and unrealistic expectations.nation** often masks fear of failure or complexity. One way to break through is to commit to just a five‑minute start, only open the document or write the first line. Momentum builds from movement, not perfection. Leaders learn quickly how micro‑starts catalyze completion.
Distractions
Distractions steal time invisibly. When a leader enforces “email up‑times,” shuts off notifications, and delegates message triage to assistants, all help protect focus. Even simple measures like closing browser tabs or placing devices out of reach during key sessions can add hours of reclaim.
Unrealistic expectations and overcommitment
Unrealistic expectations and overcommitment are traps of ambition. If you say "yes" to everything, it means a scarcity of time for what matters. Leaders who practice "strategic refusal" and renegotiate deadlines when necessary preserve energy and job performance.
Including short mindfulness breaks like a two‑minute pause to breathe, or a midday walk can support concentration and reduce stress, improving overall resilience.
Create a Productive Work Environment
A workspace optimized for focus supports time management. According to Harvard Business Review, "When our space is a mess, so are we" makes the environment clean‑up more than cosmetic; it’s central to performance and declutters both physical and digital areas. Ensuring tools, documents, and notes are easy to find justifies the brief time spent tidying. A clean desktop and an orderly physical desk minimize delays and wasted hunting for resources.
Minimize noise and interruptions
In an open office or busy household, noise‑canceling headphones, status indicators, or schedule-locked “quiet” periods make concentration possible. Done well, this preserves focused time and guards against unplanned distractions.
Include comfort and inspiration
Ergonomic chairs and good lighting reduce fatigue, while a few motivational touches like a photo or relevant quote can uplift momentum without cluttering the space. Psychological comfort supports long sessions of focused work.
Work‑Life Integration and Self‑Care
When you talk about striving for an improved balance, it isn’t about splitting time equally between work and life. It’s about showing up fully in both. Leaders who protect family time or personal downtime (through calendar blocks or “digital detox” boundaries) maintain higher energy levels and leadership clarity.
Simple rules such as shutting off work notifications by 7 P.M. or taking weekends offline reinforce balance. Regular rest refills focus reserve; without downtime, even basic tasks can feel draining.
Decision fatigue leads to poorer judgment. A study by the American Psychological Association links regular exercise to improved cognitive function and resilience to stress, honor sleep, nutrition, movement, and reflection, and consistently manage time more effectively across weeks and months.
Delegatio: How to Free Your Time Without Losing Control
Delegation remains one of the least used yet most powerful leadership tools. Effectively assigning tasks increases team capacity and liberates time for high‑impact decisions.
Its key steps include:
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Identify tasks that others can perform effectively.
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Assign to appropriate team members with clear expectations.
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Confirm they have the right tools and authority.
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Check in at intervals to support progress without micromanaging.
Recent studies show that delegating leaders can boost team output by over 30% when done thoughtfully, creating shared responsibility instead of dependency. It helps avoid burnout by letting leaders focus on guiding rather than executing everything themselves.
Continuous Improvement
Time management is never static. As roles, teams, and personal priorities evolve, so must your practices. Regular reviews, weekly or monthly, offer valuable insight: what drained you, what energized you, what needs shifting? When you conduct simple time audits.
When you track how much time is spent on major categories like meetings, deep work, emails, and downtime, it reveals where adjustment is needed. Leaders benefit from viewing their “time budget” openly and investing in changes when habits fail outcomes.
Feedback from colleagues or family can also highlight blind spots. Others may perceive patterns you're blind to, like late‑night work or excessive multitasking. Adjusting based on this feedback strengthens personal systems and leadership credibility.
New tools emerge regularly; it’s worth evaluating whether a new scheduling app or task platform can remove friction or improve visibility. Being open to change, but selective, is key to continually improving efficiency and effectiveness.
Final Thoughts and Next Steps
Real leadership is not measured by how long you're busy, but by what you get done and why it matters. When time is treated intentionally, it becomes an ally in leadership, not an adversary.
The Academy for Leadership and Training teaches not just time management, but time stewardship, encouraging leaders to align daily energy with lasting purpose. You transform daily pressure into consistent performance by learning to use frameworks like Pickle Jar, Pomodoro, time blocking, SMART planning, and delegation wisely.
Start building your time leadership skills with the Academy’s expert-led training programs. Visit The Academy for Leadership and Training to explore how high-impact leadership and prioritized time go hand in hand. Seize control of your schedule and lead with clarity, direction, and impact.
Also Read: How Ethics Shape Leadership: Principles, Traits & Impacts
Author
Jim Glantz is the Managing Partner of The Academy For Leadership And Training (TAFLAT). A 20+ year Executive of Organizational Development & Training, Jim holds a doctoral degree in Organizational Development and a Masters in Education from UCLA. Jim is an Associate Professor & the author of numerous articles.