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Manager Productivity
The manager trap: helping everyone else succeed while your own work never happens.
What Actually Fails
Infinite Availability "My door is always open" = your calendar is never yours. Teams learn to interrupt instead of problem-solve.
Meeting Colonization Back-to-back 1:1s, team syncs, cross-functional alignments. No time to think, plan, or do actual work.
Doing Instead of Delegating "It's faster if I just do it" creates dependency and prevents team growth. You become the bottleneck.
Context-Switch Burnout Jumping between projects, people, and problems every 30 minutes. Mental exhaustion without tangible progress.
Unclear Delegation Handing off tasks without decision authority, success criteria, or context creates boomerang work.
What Actually Works
Office Hours, Not Open Door — "I'm available 2-4pm for questions." Outside that: focused work time protected.
1:1 Prep — 5 minutes before each 1:1 reviewing context, notes, goals. Better conversations, faster progress.
Decision Frameworks — "If X, do Y. Only escalate if Z." Teams can decide without you for most things.
Manager Block — 2 hours weekly for planning, strategy, documentation. Treat it like a board meeting.
Batch Similar Work — All 1:1s on one day. All planning on another. Context switching kills depth.
Delegate Outcomes, Not Tasks — "Make sure the report is ready by Friday" not "Write section A, then B, then..."
Energy Reality
- People problems drain energy differently than task problems
- Your emotional state affects the whole team — manage it
- Saying "I need to think about this" is a complete answer
- Protecting your time models healthy behavior for your team
The Leverage Question
Every hour you spend doing IC work is an hour not spent multiplying your team's output. Ask: "What can ONLY I do?"
The Real Issue
Manager productivity problems are often systems problems: unclear ownership, too many meetings, insufficient delegation. Fix the system, not just your schedule.