How executives spend their time is an underrated concept. People talk about time management, but they think about it on a day-to-day or even week-to-week basis when they should consider it comprehensively.
As an executive at Amazon, I learned how to set my schedule of recurring and one-off meetings on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis in a way that stayed consistent for years. I learned how to set my calendar and allocate time intentionally – how to drive and own my calendar rather than letting other people and events drive it for me.
I learned how to do this from Jeff Wilke, former SVP of Amazon’s WW Operations and CEO of Amazon Consumer. I reported to him for four years. He is one of the best, if not the best, operators of his generation. From Jeff, I learned how to establish an operating cadence and the recurring meetings that drive it. Here is how this works.
The first step in setting your calendar is to establish the recurring meetings, which enable you and your team to audit and review current business results and progress toward annual operating plan goals. These recurring meetings all include the word “Review (e.g., Weekly Business Review, Weekly Initiatives or Project Review, and Weekly Recruiting/Hiring Review).
I had three separate one-hour Weekly reviews for each of these three topics, for a total of 3 hours per week.
Each month, I conducted a Monthly Business Review of each business or function I managed. The number you need depends on the composition of the company or organization you lead, but there should be one of these for each major business unit or function. Some business units or functions may be placed on a quarterly rather than a monthly review cycle, depending on the level of risk and/or importance. In my case, I had approximately 5 of these per month, each requiring 1-2 hours, for a total of 10 hours per month or 2.5 hours per week.
Another recurring meeting type is the Exec Team or Staff Weekly meeting (typically one upward and one downward). These meetings require 2-4 hours each week.
I also conducted 1:1s, as did my manager(s) – either 30 minutes per report per week or one hour every other week. If I had five direct reports, this would require about 3 hours per week.
In total, recurring meetings (reviews, staff meetings, 1:1s) accounted for about 13 hours per week.
Next come ad hoc meetings, which primarily consisted of three types: Working Backwards PR FAQ Reviews, candidate interviews, meetings with external partners, and “other” meetings on topics such as root-cause analysis (COE) or a deep dive into a portion of our operation.
PR FAQ reviews were the most common ad hoc meetings because of the number of iterations we would go through for each new initiative, and my role varied in each meeting: leader, peer, or presenting upward to Jeff Bezos and the S Team. I spent 5-15 hours per week on PR FAQ reviews.
(cont. in comments)
