The productivity lie I see everywhere (and what I tell my clients instead)
As an executive coach, I get a front-row seat to the calendars of many effective leaders. They look less like organized schedules and more like a city's electrical grid during a lightning storm, a chaotic, colour-coded web of back-to-back meetings, urgent calls, and strategic commitments. Radical honesty; I am NOT that organized.
Yet, these leaders are consistently told to follow productivity advice that was designed for a completely different job. They read books that tell them to "just block out four hours for deep work" or "say no to more meetings."
Let me be blunt (as I always am): for most senior leaders, that advice is not only useless, it’s damaging. It sets you up to fail. Your job doesn't happen in long, uninterrupted stretches of monastic silence. Your job is the interruptions. It's the 15-minute sync to unblock your top engineer, the urgent call with a key client, the 30-minute review that prevents a million-dollar mistake.
Trying to force a "maker's schedule" onto a "leader's reality" leads to a constant feeling of being behind, reactive, and unproductive, even on your busiest days.
The solution isn't to find a mythical, empty calendar. It's to install a new operating system. Here is the framework I use with my clients to help them reclaim control and drive impact, right in the middle of the chaos.
1. Stop Fortress-Building, Start Pocket-Hunting
The fantasy is to build a four-hour fortress of "Deep Work" in the middle of your day. The reality is that your fortress will be overrun by urgent pings and meeting requests within minutes.
Instead, I coach my clients to become elite pocket-hunters. Your calendar is full of valuable 15, 25, and 45-minute gaps between calls. The amateur sees these as breaks to check email. The pro sees them as strategic sprints.
The key is preparation. Have a running "sprint list" of discrete, high-value tasks that can be completed in under 30 minutes. Examples include:
Reviewing a key report and providing specific feedback.
Drafting the three critical bullet points for an upcoming presentation.
Sending that one thoughtful follow-up email that moves a deal forward.
When you find a 25-minute pocket, you don't waste ten minutes deciding what to do. You execute. Winning a few of these sprints is more valuable than planning for a fortress that never gets built.
2. Manage Your Decisions, Not Just Your Time
An executive's primary output isn't work; it's high-quality decisions. Your calendar is where your energy goes to die, leaving you depleted when the most critical decisions need to be made.
We work on shifting the focus from time management to decision management. This means jealously guarding your cognitive capital.
I have my clients identify their "one critical thinking task" for the day—the single piece of work that requires their undiluted strategic thought. Then, we schedule it first. Not after clearing emails, not after the morning stand-up. First. Even if it's just for 30 minutes at 7:30 AM, you're giving your best energy to your most important work, before the reactive vortex of the day begins.
3. Install a Meeting Filter, Not a Wall
"Just say no" is lazy advice. A leader's job often involves showing up. A better approach is to install a strategic filter. I have clients bake this into their process with their executive assistants or even use it themselves.
Before accepting any non-critical meeting, ask two questions:
"What is the specific, desired outcome of this meeting?" (Forces clarity.)
"Am I uniquely required to help achieve that outcome?" (Forces delegation.)
This simple filter diffuses half the meeting requests that land on your plate. It empowers you to suggest it be handled over email, to send a more appropriate delegate from your team, or to demand a clearer agenda. You go from being a bottleneck to being a strategic gatekeeper of your own time and the organization's.
4. Master the "Strategic Shutdown"
The most common failure pattern I see in leaders is the "always-on" bleed between the workday and personal time. This slow-burn burnout kills performance.
The antidote is a deliberate, daily shutdown ritual. This isn't about work-life balance fluff; it's a cognitive necessity for high performance. The ritual is simple and takes ten minutes.
5 Minutes: Scan & Triage. Quickly scan email and messages for anything truly on fire. Anything else can wait.
5 Minutes: Plan Tomorrow's "One Thing." Look at your calendar and decide on the one critical thinking task you will tackle in your first productive pocket of the day. Write it down.
Action: Close the Laptop. This is non-negotiable. The physical act signals a clean break to your brain.
Your goal isn't an empty calendar. It's a high-impact one. Stop fighting your reality and start mastering it. The leader who can generate immense value in the pockets between chaos is the one who will win.