Situation: The CEO of a high tech company has been working long hours, and has had no time for himself, or even for much sleep during the past few months. As is typical in a small company, the CEO and everyone else wears many hats. What have you done to successfully fit in time for yourself?

Advice from the CEOs:

• Take a calendar, and mark all of your time for several weeks to a month. Then look at the ways that you spend time and prioritize them into categories:
  • Life – eating, sleeping, etc.
  • Must do – mission critical
  • Must do – could possibly delegate
  • Free Time
  • See how many of the “Must do” activities you can delegate or otherwise handle and recategorize this time into Life or Free Time. You may be amazed at how much more efficiently you can use your time. Ask all employees to do this every 90 days to assure that they are utilizing their work time effectively.
• If you have long commutes or lots of travel time, get an extended battery for your laptop. This will allow you to make travel time more productive.
• Or, if you have a long commute, hire a semi-retired driver to drive you to and from work. Turn your commute time into productive work time.
  • Semi-retired drivers are available for as little as $10 per hour. You can pay them $1,000 at a time in advance, and the driver keeps a log of the time spent driving the client.
  • Use your car, or the driver’s car and if the latter, reimburse the driver for mileage.
  • To make this work effectively set the rule that you are the client, and not looking for conversation. You want to accomplish as much work as possible during the trip.
  • Look for professional drivers, with the proper licensing. Do an MVR check on the driver’s history as part of your evaluation process.

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