The Three Levels of Time Management
Time management lives alongside prioritization and communication as the foundational skills for being an effective team leader. Team leads (alongside everyone else in most organizations) have more work than they can handle, so what work should they do and when? The key to these decisions is understanding the three levels of time management.
Overview
Generally speaking, there are three levels of work for team leads, though the levels apply to many other roles. These levels bleed into each other in the real world, though I’ll keep them distinct for this article. The levels are:
Level 1: Communicating - Slack, email, Jira, meetings, PR review
Level 2: Planning - Clarifying requirements, building outlines, creating tickets, building architecture diagrams
Level 3: Executing - Implementing tickets, writing code, debugging production, pair programming
My thesis is as follows:
Each level takes 10x the focus time as the previous level.
For example, responding to one mention or direct message in Slack takes 1 minute, writing a good Jira ticket takes 10 minutes and making any progress on a Jira ticket takes 100 minutes of focus time.
Managing the three levels of tasks is a never-ending process
Usage
Given this thesis, a few ways of working fall out. Both use cases below aim to embrace the cost of context switching and difficulty securing focus time.
Daily Structure
For a team lead, meetings are a reality. They may make up 25%-50% of the day and often have negligible (if any) breaks between them. These breaks must be larger to focus on Level 3 (execution) tasks. Sometimes there are no breaks, so there’s not enough time to focus on Level 2 (planning) tasks. Avoid trying to force these tasks in. They’ll often result in poor tickets (no description or acceptance criteria) or half-baked tickets left in a tab for you to wonder about later in the day.
Instead, embrace these restrictions and work around them. Below are a few tips to try:
Reflect on when you most effectively produce (write, build, plan) vs. consume (review, comment, learn) throughout the day and plan tasks accordingly
Try to consolidate meeting times and days to produce larger blocks of focus time (assuming you don’t break focus blocks for others)
Block off time in the morning, afternoon, or both to catch up on Level 1 (communicating) and Level 2 (planning) work, so you begin and end the day “caught up.”
Don’t try to do Level 2 (planning) and especially Level 3 (executing) work in the 5 minutes between meetings. Take notes on action items during meetings and spend focus time later in the day to execute these. Instead, use the few minutes between meetings to stretch, refresh, or check on critical Level 1 (communicating) items.
One final tip is to use the levels together to set expectations and de-risk tasks.
Level 1 -> Level 2: Often, larger tasks come through Level 1 channels like Slack messages or email. These tasks require time to address, but the requester may only know this once the task is completed. Set an expectation with them by saying you’ve seen the request and will provide an update by the end of the day (or some other time frame).
Level 2 -> Level 3: Level 3 (execution) is the riskiest of all three levels because delays are often a percentage of the task size. That means a 50% delay in a Level 3 tasks is the same size as 5 Level 2 tasks. Spend time planning, outlining, and confirming requirements (all Level 2 tasks) before starting a Level 3 task. This investment may seem like duplication, but it is an effective de-risking mechanism.
Team Work Distribution
Building on the last point above, spending time in Level 1 and 2 tasks to de-risk Level 2 and 3 tasks is an effective tool for team leads specifically. In fact, given the team leader’s role, access to other departments, and understanding of the business goals, the team leader is uniquely qualified to execute Level 1 and Level 2 tasks.
This manifests in practice because the team lead should focus exclusively on Level 1 and 2 work when the team is overwhelmed with work. Understanding task priority and requirements is critical when the team is underwater. This can feel counterintuitive because if there’s more work, shouldn’t the team lead jump in as an individual contributor? This may result in a very short-term team productivity jump but quickly leads to missed requirements and priorities.
As a team lead, resist the urge to start Level 3 tasks before all Level 1 and 2 tasks are complete for you and your team.
Conclusion
It’s easy to think that Level 3 tasks are “the work” and everything else is just inefficiencies. Though tasks at each level are required of all team members, team leads must focus on Level 1 and 2 tasks for both themselves and their team. Protect Level 3 task time for your team members and embrace the structure of your day to execute on Level 1 and 2 tasks effectively.
Remember that in the time it takes to perform 1 Level 3 task, you can perform 10 Level 2 tasks or 100 Level 1 tasks. Don’t forget the power of effective communication and planning.
If you’re interested in learning more about this article, please send me a note at brian@connsulting.io or schedule a time to chat at https://calendly.com/connsulting.
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