As a vice president at a growing company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, chances are your schedule is packed to the brim. Meetings, calls, emails, decisions—the daily tasks and responsibilities can feel endless. With so much on your plate on any given day, effective time management becomes critical.
In my experience as a FocalPoint coach working closely with executives and managers, I’ve found the most effective approach is to prioritize people over tasks. This may sound counter-intuitive; after all, you have so many business objectives, projects, and deliverables to manage. But at the end of the day, success comes down to how well you connect with the people around you—your team, colleagues, and clients.
So how do you put people first with so much to do? Here are my top time management tips for busy VPs:
#1 Block Off Time for Building Relationships
This starts with protecting time in your calendar for walking the halls and chatting with employees. Get to know them, ask about their lives outside of work, and show sincere interest in who they are as people. Schedule regular one-on-one meetings to provide mentorship and support for people on your team. Join team meetings whenever you can, even if just to listen and participate in casual conversations.
You should also carve out time for unrushed check-ins with colleagues and clients. Rushing through a status update may solve a problem efficiently, but you lose the opportunity to truly listen, empathize and strengthen the relationship. Take time to understand their unique perspective—this is how you build loyalty and connection.
#2 Ruthlessly Cut Low-Value Activities
As a leader, your most precious resource is your time and energy. You must protect it at all costs from activities and tasks that provide little value. Analyze how you currently spend your days—is there wasted time that can be reclaimed?
Examine your calendar for recurring meetings that may no longer be needed or could be handled more efficiently. Delegate tasks to others whenever appropriate so you can focus your efforts on people-focused leadership. Say no to low-value meetings and activities so you have time for what’s truly meaningful.
#3 Schedule People Priorities First
Take control of your calendar by scheduling your people priorities first before adding in other tasks. For example, block off regular chunks of time each week for walking around, chatting with employees, and holding one-on-one mentoring sessions. Schedule lunches or coffees with colleagues and clients to strengthen relationships.
Only after your people time is protected should you start scheduling your task-based priorities. This ensures your people interactions won’t continually be crowded out by the urgent demands. Set calendar reminders to prompt you to switch gears from tasks to people connections.
#4 Involve Your Team in Planning
Your team can provide an outside perspective on where your time and focus would have the most value. Ask them directly how they’d like more of your time and attention, and which activities seem like a waste for you to spend time on.
Give your team visibility into your calendar so they better understand your time limitations. Encourage them to suggest delegating tasks they could take on themselves to free up more of your schedule. This collaborative planning process results in you spending time in the highest-impact areas.
#5 Reflect on Your Time Use Weekly
Take five minutes at the end of each week to reflect on how effectively you used your time and where you could improve. Were you able to have meaningful conversations with team members and colleagues? Did you have to cancel or rush through any people-focused commitments due to getting stuck in operational tasks?
Identify any themes in how your time was wasted or misused so you can correct them going forward. Continually refining your time management leads to more hours spent building critical relationships.
#6 Learn to Let Go of Perfectionism
Some VPs get caught up trying to control every detail of projects and tasks that could be delegated to others. But chasing perfectionism is not the best use of your time as a leader. Prioritize progress over perfection—focus your efforts on the 20% of activities that drive 80% of the impact.
Empower your team to run with the details on projects while you provide high-level guidance and input. Let go of perfectionism so you have time to do the high-value work only you can do as VP—leading culture, developing people, and nurturing relationships.
At the end of the day, almost nothing is as valuable as genuinely connecting with people. When you invest in relationships, the returns for your business will be invaluable. Make it a priority to put people first in your busy schedule as a leader in Milwaukee. As a FocalPoint coach, I’m here to help you learn to manage your time. Book an introductory call with me to learn more.
