A key tool to be effective as an Executive Director of a nonprofit is to master control of your time.
Are you working 10–12-hour days and still feel chronically behind?
Are you unable to focus on planning because you are continually reacting to crises?
How many times have you started your Monday morning with a nice meaty list of all tasks you want to tackle and find at the end of the day you have not had a moment to breathe and did not scratch a thing off that list?
Are you answering ‘well yeah’ to all these questions?
Well, my guess is you may need some support in developing smart habits and systems so you can regain control over your time.
Today’s podcast will provide you with a few easy actionable tips to begin to protect your calendar and shift your mindset to assist you in capturing the headspace you deserve to plan and think strategically.
Find the full transcript for episode 2 at relishyourrole.com/2.
So Many Nonprofit Demands, So Little Time
I hear from many women like yourselves running nonprofit agencies that they feel like they are constantly burning the candle at both ends. They must attend to their leadership team, nurture the work culture, respond to Board inquiries, funder requests and some public dust up which needs attention.
And did I mention the endless meetings?
So many of these women also have responsibilities as a spouse, parent and adult child to their parent or in-laws, there really are not enough hours in a day.
It takes a herculean effort to bring the thoughtful intentionality to all these tasks, and when you fall short you feel bad.
I am not going to tell you to lower your expectations.
I am going to suggest a few habits you can adapt which will protect your calendar. I am also going to talk about some self-defeating mindsets we all have which keeps us on the hamster wheel.
Let’s start with some easy systems and habits which will help you gain control.
The Power of a Well-Crafted List for a Nonprofit Executives
Let’s start with lists. How many of you make lists to you organize your time?
Are your lists a mind dump of everything you have to do from signing a contract to starting a strategic planning effort?
When we create lists that are a jumble of both long- and short-term tasks,
- You either find yourself continually transferring that big task from the old list to the new one, and you feel guilty about it, or
- It turns into a running tally of tasks, and you ignore the list until you clean off your desk and it goes into the trash.
Let’s make lists work for you. I am a big believer in lists. One of their values is they help you visualize all that you need to do. A list can also help you categorize the tasks before you so you can prioritize and plan your time. There are also few things more satisfying than crossing things off a list
Given the complexity of your job, one list will not work for you— it quickly becomes a nagging tally of what you have not done, and you do not need any more guilt inducing things in your life.
I suggest you have a list, either a sheet of paper, or as an open document on your desktop which has three columns for three different types of tasks.
Identify the Easy Tasks
One column is the easy to do things, the grant application to review, the phone call to return, the meeting you need to schedule. These are things which call for little or no preparatory time on your end. They tend to be the daily requests which must be attended to but do not call for you to research anything or prepare in any way. These are what I call low barrier tasks.
I am not saying that they these will be quick phone call or a fast read but these are things you do not have to carve out focused time for.
Incorporate the Flow of Your Day
You know the flow of your day, perhaps the lunch hour is when you can read and approve the things necessary, or if it is best to return phone calls in the morning before all the staff and clients arrive. Lumping the low barrier tasks together can help you plan your time based on the rhythm of the day. Low input, easy to check off.
Mid-Barrier Tasks
The second column are tasks which will require some work on your end before you can complete them. These are mid-barrier tasks. You may have to talk with a staff person before you respond to a community request. You may have to read the program data before you write your speech for a luncheon. You may have to talk to a partner before you get back to a funding source.
These are two or three steps tasks and need both a bit more time and brain power to complete. They often require the involvement of others so there are logistical considerations which impact how much time they will take to complete and the type of time it would require.
And you can guess the third column.
Tasks Requiring Ful Concentration
These are the high barrier big issues. It may be the strategic plan or convening a group of partners to plan for a new program or creating a new organizational structure or building next year’s budget. These tasks involve others and/ or require your brain to be working at top performance. These are not tasks you can do at the end of the day or squeeze in in-between meetings. These tasks require your full concentration with no distractions.
When you can plot your tasks according to their complexity and what they will require of you to complete, you can begin to schedule them intentionally, based on your other commitments and mental bandwidth.
I tell clients to make a list with these three columns either at the beginning or end of the week and use it to budget their availability to respond to new, noncrisis requests.
For your easy, low barrier, simple to-do tasks, you can work through them as your workday and work week unfolds.
Those mid barrier task take some scheduling especially as they usually require the involvement of others. Taking your cue for the time sensitivity of these issues, schedule them in in your calendar. Make sure you actually schedule two or more of them a week to get them completed.
Acknowledge Accomplishments
Reward yourself with being able to cross things off your list.
Those high barrier tasks tend to be long term and there may be two or three weeks where you do not get to them. But you have to plan when you will tackle them. These planning, deep brain involvement tasks need a place on your calendar. These may be tasks you do on days when you work at home with no distractions.
When you continually just focus on the small stuff, it gets easier to get burned out and lose sight of making the changes that attracted you to the job to begin with.
Carving out time for those big tasks are good for you, your agency and your self-esteem. These are not things you should routinely complete during the weekends. They are one of your primary activities as the leader of your agency and you need to get them scheduled on your calendar accordingly.
Using this approach to lists changes their role from a nagging presence to a tool to schedule and protect your time.
Try this three-column approach for one full month and see if it makes a difference. You should feel more in control and more deliberate about how you are spending your time.
Changing Your Leadership Mindset
Sometimes overwhelmed Executive Directors get caught in a loop where they are continually responding to low barrier issues as they do not feel they have the mental energy to tackle the bigger tasks, and they cannot break the pattern. These tasks become a way of not dealing with the big issue, they serve as a nonhealthy diversion.
You may need to have a candid conversation with yourself about what is keeping you on that hamster wheel and not turning your brilliance to the big visionary things?
If you are feeling you do not have the energy, or you are second guessing your ability to tackle the hard things—try to clear your time and headspace through using the approaches I have talked about today to master your time.
Give yourself the grace to try this new system out for a month, adapt the suggestions for what best works for you. The goal is to gain control of your time so you can lead with your authentic voice.
You can do it, and I am here to help.