On a large-scale project for a global surf brand, one of my lead architects was struggling. He was a brilliant, in-demand resource, but his work was falling behind. The heat was on from leadership, but I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t delivering. We had a team policy to limit meetings to no more than half of any given day, so in theory, he had four hours of heads-down time.
When I asked him if he was getting booked more than half his time, he said, “No. But I’m only left with 30-minute chunks of time all throughout the day. I can’t get anything done.”
And it all made sense. By the time he’d return to his desk, check his email, and prep for the next meeting, those 30-minute blocks were effectively zero-minute blocks for actual work.
30 min + 30 min + 30 min + 30 min = 0 productive hours.
From that point on, we changed our policy. For anyone who was actually involved in production, we had them block off their calendars for four hours a day, usually a full morning or a full afternoon, so they could get work done.
What This Means for Leaders
As a manager, you might be used to a schedule filled with meetings. Your day is focused on aligning leadership, managing risk, and keeping tabs on status. But for senior roles like architects, engineers, or designers, their work is about deep work, strategizing, coding, or designing. You need to give them large swaths of uninterrupted time to be productive.
Remember, your job is to remove roadblocks, not create them. Time fragmentation is an invisible obstacle that kills productivity and morale. By actively protecting your team’s time and encouraging long, uninterrupted blocks of focus, you’re not just being a good manager; you’re enabling them to do the very work you hired them for.
Key Takeaways for Leaders:
- Recognize the difference between focused work and reactive work. Not everyone’s job is about attending meetings all day.
- Encourage “deep work.” Block off large chunks of time for your team on their calendars and establish a “no-meeting” policy during those periods.
- Be a gatekeeper. Push back on unnecessary meeting invites for your team and protect their calendars as a valuable resource.