Working too hard causes blindness!

I regularly meet managers that explain to me they are totally occupied, no time to in their calendar, and have ample time to breath. Nothing wrong in working hard, but not breaking out of being controlled by your calendar is a ticket to a burn out!

I am sure you immediately recognize this behaviour. If not from yourself (...) then maybe from one of your fellow managers.

I strongly believe that the pressure on people in companies to produce value has increased over time. And mostly, the work pressure slowly builds up, very unnoticeably. And suddenly, you look at your calendar, see the pile of meetings and also realize the immense backlog of activities that pile up. And whenever you get some done, new ones seem to pop up faster and faster.... Luckily, even if you realize this now, it is not too late...

There are simply two ways to approach your work. One is the events control you and the other is you control the events.

Are you doubtful if you are not in control anymore?

When there is this moment of silence, no phone is ringing, no one is entering your office, in other words, you do not get interrupts. If this causes a certain feel of unrest, you know for sure, you are not in control anymore, the work controls you.

Is this wrong? Yes, of course this is totally wrong! If you are totally operationalized, it is not just keeping you day and night extremely busy, but it also stops you from taking the time to for your other responsibilities as a manager. Tasks such as direction of the team, 'fit' in the organisation, overall and individual effectiveness, measure against objectives, etc. etc.

So, even if you strongly believe, because you work round the clock, you are one of the people that make up the heart of the company, you are not. Because you simply do not do all the tasks your company expects from you as a manager.

There is no hard rule, how much time you should consider blocking for such tasks, but you can allocate your time just once. So, if you allow all interrupts to block your calendar...

For some this will be very challenging, so in one of my next blogs I will give some more advise on this topic.

In the meantime, I strongly advise to verify your own position. Are you in control or are you slowly getting blind?