{"id":2176,"date":"2016-02-09T17:18:59","date_gmt":"2016-02-09T22:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/?p=2176"},"modified":"2016-01-08T17:37:47","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T22:37:47","slug":"do-you-need-office-me-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/do-you-need-office-me-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Need Office \u201cME\u201d Time?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Editor’s Note: Jim Cucinotta is a very senior executive, with over 20+ years of experience in leading sales, marketing, and operations teams. \u00a0He is also an author on Flevy. \u00a0You can\u00a0view his firm’s business\u00a0training guides\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * * *<\/p>\n

\"yoga-160276_960_720\"Being a leader is hard work.\u00a0 Everyone expects you to be \u201cON\u201d every moment of every day.\u00a0 You are pulled in a million different directions and normally you handle this with aplomb.\u00a0 But today is different, you don\u2019t feel like being a leader.\u00a0 You want to close your office door and get some YOUR work done.\u00a0 You do not want to deal with Whiny Winnie, Need Ned, and the rest of your team.<\/div>\n

Does this sound familiar?\u00a0 You are not the first nor last leader who needs an office \u201cME\u201d day.\u00a0 In fact many leadership experts point to how you manage your calendar as one of the truest forms of leadership.\u00a0 Blocking off \u201cME\u201d time each week is an important habit that you need to start today and make it a weekly or daihabit.<\/p>\n

So how do you start this \u201cME\u201d time when you are so busy and everyone is so needy?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Find a natural time in your work schedule when people do not want to be bothered.\u00a0 This typically falls early Monday morning between 8 am \u2013 11 am or after 2 pm on Fridays.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 People tend to be distracted at these times- discussing weekend events or plans.\u00a0 I tend to use the first and last hours of my day, no one wants to talk to me at 7 am or at 5 pm.\u00a0 Block your preferred times as busy right now.<\/p>\n

How do you prepare for your \u201cME\u201d time?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Turn off your cell phone, send your office phone to VM, close your door, and put headphones on if you are in an open floor plan.\u00a0 Make every visible clue that you are working on something every important.\u00a0 Because you are.<\/p>\n

What do you do during \u201cME\u201d time?<\/strong>\u00a0 If you look at your day, it is typically spent in three phases- tasks, projects, planning.\u00a0 If you are like most leaders, you spend all day on projects and ignore the other two.\u00a0 So clear all of your tasks first.\u00a0 A task is anything that can be done quickly.\u00a0 Read and respond to emails.\u00a0 Send meeting invitations.\u00a0 Run\/read simple reports.\u00a0 Take care of all of the little things you never get to.\u00a0 But cap it at an hour.\u00a0 If you are using my method, use thirty minutes of each hour.<\/p>\n

What do you do during the rest of the time?<\/strong>\u00a0 Planning.\u00a0 The key to success is a good plan.\u00a0 Take this time to create your team and personal short and mid-term goals.\u00a0 Devise the correct strategies to achieve those plans.\u00a0 Set up the meetings to explain and implement those plans.\u00a0 Monitor the performance of plans already in action (projects in above example).\u00a0 If you still have time, dream about your team\u2019s stretch goals.<\/p>\n

But working your \u201cME\u201d time into your schedule, you will be amazed at how you will achieve better results and be more in tune with your team.\u00a0 You will have more energy.\u00a0 You will be more focused.\u00a0 And you will get better results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: Jim Cucinotta is a very senior executive, with over 20+ years of experience in leading sales, marketing, and operations teams. \u00a0He is also an author on Flevy. \u00a0You can\u00a0view his firm’s business\u00a0training guides\u00a0here. * * * * Being a leader is hard work.\u00a0 Everyone expects you to be \u201cON\u201d every moment of every… Do You Need Office \u201cME\u201d Time?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":2177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[408],"tags":[106],"class_list":["post-2176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management-leadership","tag-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2189,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176\/revisions\/2189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}