Time Management For Managers 

USE YOUR TIME WISELY

When we move people up the ladder and they are doing higher level work like hiring, leading a team, planning the future of the company, etc. lots of times, they don’t realize that as they have moved up, their time has become more valuable. This is not to say that the work they were doing before isn’t valuable, but rather to say that as you do higher level work, your time and skillset becomes more valuable.

So with that, we need you to value your time more as you move up the ladder. This means outsourcing stuff that can be done by anyone AND leave more time for the work that only you can do (until we train others to do it as they move up the ladder).

The Dichotomy here: This isn’t to say you are above the any level of work. If the job of the day requires you get back in the field, do data entry, check up on some things, etc. Then that is what you do. Just because you did move up the ladder doesn’t mean that you can’t or won’t ever do labor that isn’t as valuable or high level.

Example 1): We moved a young lady up from the Dog Pro position and she is crushing her new role as Lead Trainer. However as she moved up the ladder, she didn’t place a higher value on her time the way she should have (because she didn’t know to, which is my fault). The other day we were working and she had to go home to get a $10 box of snacks for an event we were doing that weekend. The problem with this is home was 45 minutes both ways. So this young Lead Trainer was going to spend 90 minutes in total going to get a box of snacks when the drive time (and gas) would have costs much more than $10. The reason this was an issue particularly is because she had tons of hiring calls to make and no one can do that for her except her. I am sure you can see the issue here, but this just emphasizes the point that as we move up, we need to place a higher value on our time so we can do the things that only we as managers can do.

Example 2): I was talking with one of the Lead Trainers the other day and during the conversation we were talking about delegating a task (quality control calls & texts) off her and the other Lead Trainers plates. We decided it would be best to outsource it the Gate Keepers and her reply was, “Yeah, when I am overseeing the LT’s in the region, I’ll take back over that.” And I used that as an example to teach her what you’re reading about right now. There would be no point in a Regional LT doing manual text and call QC on a regular basis. That is a lower level task and so it wouldn’t make sense for someone with a larger role in the organization to do a lower level task. Sure, there is an argument to do it every now and then, but there is no need for this position to do it regularly.