When you take on a player-coach role, how you manage your time is crucial. So it’s important to be intentional about designing a way of working that actually works for you. What this looks like will be different for everyone, but here are some things to consider.
Working hours: this is especially important if you work in a business that operates with ‘core hours’. Your team needs to know when you’ll be available.
Personal priorities: Equally, it’s great role modelling to block out time to pick up your kids, go to the gym or for personal development. It creates permission for your team to do the same - and these moments are crucial to give you breathing space and time to decompress. At the end of every week or month, try adding your own priorities to the calendar first and see what a difference it makes.
1:1’s: 1:1’s are your most important meetings with your team members, so it’s important to protect this time. 1:1’s help you to keep your finger on the pulse on how your team members are feeling and nip potential issues in the bud before they escalate.
Thinking time: when our calendars are back to back, it can begin to feel like we don’t have any time to actually do the work we need to do. To combat this, experiment with different ways to build in thinking time - it could be a couple of hours for focused effort or a 15 minute buffer before meetings. This will help you bring a more intentional, less frantic energy into your work and set you up for getting the best out of meetings and collaboration time.