going to further our Mission by taking us from where we are now up the path to our Vision? Your 

Mission describes how you improve your customers’ lives and your Vision describes what things will be like when your company fulfills its Mission. Everything you spend your precious time on should somehow be moving you along this path. 

2. Only do what only you can do. 
There are two kinds of what I call real CEO work—(1) turning continuous learning into designing and continuously improving the business model and, (2) and ensuring the efficient and effective operation of the overall business model. These are the two things you can’t delegate to lower level employees. You can split these roles up among two head honchos if you like and that’s often the case. Could be a co-CEO structure or a CEO/COO approach.  

Now, I fully understand that in smaller companies the CEO does not have the luxury of delegating all the non-CEO work because you just can’t yet afford to hire enough staff. But at least understand you have to schedule the real CEO work first before filling in your calendar with other things. And keep striving to get to a point where you can delegate more and more of the non-CEO work. 

Of course to do that you need people reporting to you who are capable of doing what you’re delegating to them without coming to you for help. Ideally you should hire direct reports who can do the work better than you can. Weak links are enormous time drains. If you’ve got one, fix it fast. 

3. Leverage the power of technology.
Have you explored productivity improving apps or programs that can improve your “CEO process?” Are you taking full advantage of their capabilities?

a. Time Scheduling--I can’t begin to tell you how much time I’ve saved and how much more I’ve accomplished by effectively using tools like Google Calendar to ensure that I’m focusing on what’s most important first and not overscheduling myself. It’s not just about using a calendar app, it’s about applying the best practices to fully utilize them. 

b.Staying Current--Staying up to date with “current reality” is a critical CEO responsibility. To reduce the amount of time you spend staying up to date with news about customers, competitors, relevant technologies, or anything else you need to be on top of, use one of the customizable news feeds like Google News, Flipboard, News360, etc.

c.Minimizing Travel--How much time-gobbling travel could you eliminate by using Skype, Face Time, Go To Meeting, etc.

 

4. Practice crisis avoidance.

Nothing will wastefully eat up your time more than an unexpected crisis. Suddenly everyone’s attention is dragged off the important building and running the business work and sucked up by firefighting tasks. Crises in the JP industry can be product recalls, negative product publicity, employee law suits, bankruptcy of a major customer, loss of a key employee, and so on. I’m not trying to depress you but sh_t happens. I would suggest that as part of your strategic planning process, you include in your SWOT analysis all the possible internal or external crises and list them in priority order by the degree of likelihood and negative impact on your company. Then create strategies to minimize the likelihood of the highest ranking ones happening. There’s no excuse not to do this.

5. Organize and simplify your office.
One simple but useful tool in the Lean Six Sigma process improvement toolkit is called “5S.” It’s aimed at creating a more efficient and visual workplace and can be applied just as successfully in your own office as it can throughout your company. It really will save you time.

a. Sort—Make sure you have the right materials in your office available for your daily work. Eliminate anything not used.

b. Set in Order—A place for everything and everything in its place. Set up a system so that you can find whatever documents or information you need quickly and easily. Have a simple, visual, easy to access dashboard that shows you the key performance indicator status and trends.

c. Shine—Keep everything clean and in working order.

d. Standardize—Establish guidelines for daily routines, checklists, and logs where useful so important activities aren’t overlooked.

e. Sustain—Regularly audit whether you are sustaining the other 4S’s.

 

6.Never again hold or attend a poorly managed meeting.
How much of your time is wasted by:

a. Meetings you didn’t have to be at in the first place—solution: know when to say no (see #1).

b. Lack of a well-thought out agenda—solution: make agendas with a specified time span an absolute requirement that must be sent with the invitation.

c. People showing up late or unprepared—solution: make attendance and active participation part of your culture and enforce it.

d. Meetings that could have been replaced by emails—solution: question the need for a meeting when invited.

e. A/V equipment not working properly—solution: should be checked in advance.

f. Poor meeting facilitation—solution: facilitators should be trained.

 

7.Don’t neglect your own physical and emotional health. 
It’s easy to forget that poor health can jeopardize both the amount of time you can devote to your role as CEO and the quality of that time. Make sure health related activity is baked into your schedule with high priority. And, don’t overload yourself. A CEO health issue is another potential company crisis that you definitely want to avoid.

Next Steps

It could be very revealing to keep an accurate log for a week of where your time actually goes. Then see if any of these 8 recommendations could help you eliminate wasted time. I have one more time-saving recommendation. Don’t be reluctant to take advantage of resources outside of your company (like the JPMA CEO Mentor Program) that could help you quickly put some of these ideas into action. Contact Kyle Schaller at kschaller@jpma.org or sign up on the web site. Your first session is free and subsequent sessions only cost you a $150 charity donation. It could be one of the best investments you’ll make this year.