Strategies For The Overscheduled Leader

By Linda Fisher Thornton

More commitments than time. Five or more meetings a day. Eating at your desk. Does any of this sound familiar?

Early in the pandemic, when most events were cancelled or converted to virtual, we had time. Time to think. Free time. Now that many events are happening in person again, we are headed right back to where we started – overscheduled.

I don’t know about you, but now that I have tasted a schedule in which I had time to think, I don’t really want to go back to the hectic schedule of the past.

So what do we do about it? Today, I’m sharing resources for figuring out how to retain the time to think as our busy schedules resume and ramp up.

How To Retain the Time to Think

Re-Learn How to Say No

The One Word That Can Save You When You’re Feeling Overwhelmed, Adrian Granzella Larssen, The Muse

Simplify Your Time Management

Time Management Won’t Save You, Dane Jensen, Harvard Business Review

Set Boundaries

Make Time for “Me” Time, Elizabeth Grace Saunders, Harvard Business Review

Manage Your Attention

Productivity Isn’t About Time Management. It’s About Attention Management, Adam Grant, The New York Times

Get in Touch With Your Values

Life Plan Strategies For Busy People, Elizabeth Scott, PhD, VeryWellMind

Using all five of these strategies together will help us stay on the path to having daily time to think, reflect and rest as our busy schedules try to once again take over our lives. Carving out time for what is most important will definitely be worth the effort, positively impacting our well-being and our productivity.

Don’t wait. As schedules start to close in on us again, we need to take steps to prevent fatigue, burnout and low productivity. Feel free to share other good resources for retaining the time to think in the comments.