I once worked with a CEO who was overwhelmed.
His calendar was packed with back-to-back meetings. His inbox? A bottomless pit. His leadership team? Constantly busy but not moving the company forward.
“I feel like I’m working harder than ever,” he told me, “but nothing seems to change.”
That’s when I asked him:
“What if the real problem isn’t time management, but priority management?”
Most leaders think they need more hours in the day.
They don’t. They need fewer distractions—for themselves and their teams.
Here’s how great leaders cut through the noise and focus on what drives breakthrough results.
Great leaders aren’t born—they’re built, habit by habit.
Get the Leadership Habits Series—real stories, 3 action steps, 2 mistakes to avoid, and 1 question to 10x your results. Delivered weekly. Free.
1. Teach Your Team to Protect Their Time
Many leaders complain that their teams are drowning in work. But if you look closer, you’ll see that most of that work isn’t strategic.
Endless meetings. Constant email pings. Busywork disguised as productivity.
One executive I coached had his team working 12-hour days—but when we analyzed their schedules, less than 20% of their time was spent on high-impact work.
Leaders must teach their teams how to protect their time.
↳ Set “Deep Work” hours. Block out time when meetings and interruptions are NOT allowed. If everyone is always available, no one is ever focused.
↳ Create a “Stop Doing” list. Instead of asking, “What should we do?” ask, “What should we eliminate?” Most teams don’t have a productivity problem. They have a prioritization problem.
↳ Model the behavior. If you’re always in reactive mode, your team will be too. Show them what focused, intentional work looks like.
2. Fix Meetings Before They Kill Momentum
Meetings should be where decisions happen.
But in many organizations, meetings are where ideas go to die. They run too long, go in circles, and end with no real action.
I once asked a leadership team to audit their meetings for a week. The results?
They spent 60% of their time in meetings. Worse, half of those meetings had no clear purpose.
As a leader, you must protect your team from meeting overload.
↳ Ask: “Does this meeting need to exist?” If the answer isn’t a strong yes, cancel it.
↳ Cut meeting times in half. Most discussions don’t need an hour. Try 30, 20, or even 15 minutes.
↳ End every meeting with clear action steps. Who is doing what, by when? If there’s no outcome, there was no point.
The best teams don’t have more meetings. They have better ones.
3. Make Email Work for You—Not Against You
I once asked a leader how often he checked email.
His answer? “At least every 10 minutes.”
That’s 48 times a day—which means he was never fully focused on anything.
Most leaders don’t realize how much email steals from their day. Worse, they don’t realize they’re training their teams to do the same.
↳ Check email at set times—NOT all day. Twice a day is enough. The world won’t end.
↳ Teach your team to stop expecting instant replies. If everyone is “always on,” no one is ever thinking deeply.
↳ Use subject lines that get straight to the point. Try: “Decision needed by Friday” instead of “Quick question.”
Email should be a tool, not a trap. Leaders must set the standard for how it’s used.
4. Teach People to Prioritize High-Impact Work
Most teams spend too much time on urgent but low-value work.
A leader I worked with was constantly pulled into “fires.” When we dug deeper, we found that 80% of these “urgent” issues could have waited or been ignored.
The key to agility isn’t doing more—it’s knowing what not to do.
↳ Ask your team: “What’s your highest-value task today?” If they don’t know, they’re working blind.
↳ Use the 80/20 rule. Focus on the 20% of work that drives 80% of results. Everything else? Minimize or delegate it.
↳ Empower people to push back. If a request doesn’t support top priorities, train your team to say, “Not right now.”
High-performance teams prioritize outcomes, not just effort.
5. Give Your Team Permission to Think
Most workplaces are too noisy for real thinking.
Phones buzzing. Slack notifications. “Quick” questions from coworkers.
One leader I coached was frustrated because her team lacked strategic thinking. But when I looked at their schedule, I saw why: They had no time to think.
Leaders must make space for deep work.
↳ Block “Strategy Hours.” No meetings. No Slack. No interruptions. Just focused thinking.
↳ Give permission to unplug. Encourage walking meetings, deep focus days, and actual lunch breaks.
↳ Create a culture of thinking before reacting. Instead of answering immediately, encourage pausing—taking time to reflect before responding.
Great leaders don’t just solve problems. They create the space where better thinking happens.
Less Noise. More Breakthroughs.
If you’re a leader, your biggest job isn’t to do more—it’s to create an environment where your team can focus on what actually matters.
Cut the clutter. Fix meetings. Kill email overload. Prioritize outcomes.
Because the teams that win?
They don’t work harder.
They work smarter.
