Vikram Pandit, who took over as CEO of the deeply troubled Citi Bank in December, has been under pressure to declare which parts of Citi be jettisoned in order to make it profitable again. Pandit has been accused of being indecisive and ruminative, but considering the labyrinthine business of Citi, getting a handle on the business is bound to take time – leave alone coming up with an effective turnaround strategy. Though all of us may not have the kind of task Pandit has ahead of him, how can we get more value added productivity into our days?
In Are You Spending Time the Right Way, executive coach Melissa Raffoni outlines a three-step process for using your time more strategically. In summary she asks you to:
Break your responsibilities into strategic and tactical categories such as growth and improvement, managing people, and administration.
Determine how much of your time should be devoted to each category. “To answer,” she writes, “factor in the competing claims on your time: the activities that enable you to generate the most leverage, the company’s strategic priorities, and the short-term needs of your supervisors, direct reports, and customers.”
Make sure your conclusions align with the mission of our superiors and the company overall. Do you and your boss see eye-to-eye on where your commitments should be?
With this information in hand, Raffoni suggests you conduct an audit of how you actually spent your own time last week by looking at your calendar. Are your time commitments strategic? If not, learn how to box time and delegate to get the most out of your schedule, she says.