Time Management In Crisis

Don’t think what I used to: “After the opera gala is over, then I’ll have time to do the strategic, important things.” Or… “Once the orchestra’s season brochure goes to print, then things will settle down enough to work on our patron retention strategy.” What I learned is that doing the urgent things \*does not\* free up your time later. 🛑 It's just the opposite: making sure you prioritize some of the important, strategic things is what in turn will free you up. This is especially true in times of crisis, and even just during times of busyness where it all feels like a lot. Keeping your day full with putting out fires 🔥 means you don't have to face the bigger, harder questions. Sometimes it's "easier" to do all the tasks that fill your day, instead of facing the fact that there are some big issues that need your leadership. And leadership done well is often incredibly hard work. 💪 It's not a question of what won't get done; it's a question of how long is filling your day with All. The. Things. and not leading strategy going to work for your organization? ➡️ Saying next year/season will be better without doing the strategic work to get there now is like saying you made a New Year's Resolution to lose 100 lbs but you're not changing anything about your diet or lifestyle. What’s one big strategic element that you’ve been putting off spending time on? Start with that. Carve out a few hours for some deep thinking, flow state work to get it going. Your organization will benefit more than you ever knew. 🔔 Follow for more strategies and insights to fill your seats and keep audiences coming back. #opera #orchestra #leadership

I have spent a good percentage of my career in tech in "war rooms". Now I help my CEO and board clients run theirs as efficiently and effectively as possible. Every business hits moments that require urgent, focused action — whether it’s a product crisis, market shift, or existential threat. But a war room isn’t just a room full of smart people reacting fast. It’s a disciplined operating model with three things that matter most: people, process, and exit. Here’s how to run one that works: 1. Assemble the Right People who are: - Cross-functional (Ops, Comms, Legal, Product, Finance) with the seniority and expertise needed to drive a solution - Empowered to decide (no observers, no middle relays) - Clear on roles (strategist, operator, communicator, decision-maker) 2. Ruthlessly Manage Time and Delegation by: - Assigning a war room lead - Delegating all non-critical workflows early to keep war room members focused (and your regular business running) - Keeping a running log for institutional memory and fast reporting 3. Set Clear Exit Criteria by: - Creating the scorecard of metrics or conditions that signal resolution on day one - Implementing ownership hand-off points to BAU teams - Planning time-boxed check-ins to assess wind-down readiness The key? Urgency without chaos. The best war rooms are calm, clear, and decisive. They don’t just react — they resolve. Have you run a war room that worked well? What made the difference? Please comment below! Do you need some help with a moment of crisis or in avoiding a war room all together by designing a preemptive leadership strategy offsite? Feel free to reach out to me here. #Leadership #CrisisManagement #WarRoom #ExecutiveStrategy #DecisionMaking #BusinessContinuity #CrisisLeadership #Operations #HighPerformanceTeams

Sam Altman and Mr. Beast made the same mistake last week. Reeling from Google's latest AI model, Sam Altman declared "Code Red" at OpenAI—a company where employees already call work-life balance "non-existent." Meanwhile, Mr. Beast apologized for flopped videos and vowed "ultra grind mode" for 2026. He already lives in a studio apartment inside his office to avoid the commute. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗯��𝗰𝗸𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀: 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗴𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗴𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴. No reserve tank for emergencies means you're driving on empty with the next gas station 40 miles away. That's poor planning, not crisis management. 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀. If your team is maxed out and still falling behind, the issue isn't effort—it's direction. Cognitive science is clear: stress and cortisol don't unlock breakthrough thinking. They kill it. It’s okay to ask a lot of your employees, and in many situations, greater effort does lead to greater reward. Still, if you’re already running your teams ragged and falling further behind, it might be time to look for another solution. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱: 1. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺. It’s easy to say that teams should operate at 80-90% capacity to maintain reserves, but nearly impossible to do that in practice. Our work always finds a way to expand to fill the time we have for it. Instead, it’s okay to have teams working at 100%, but fill their plates with a mix of long and short-term goals. When times are tough, they can focus on the more urgent needs and put the longer-term goals aside as needed. 2. 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵-𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗲. "Code Red" only works if it's rare and time-bound. If possible, communicate an end date for the crunch period and pre-schedule recovery time.  If it’s not possible to know the end date, try to make the goals of the grind period as concrete as possible. End-dates and concrete goals signal that the sprint is not the new normal. 3. 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘇𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸. When leaders panic, they usually throw hours at the problem, set more ambitious goals, and call for all hands on deck. What they miss is an excellent opportunity to clear off lower-priority efforts and zombie work.  👩💻 I'm Mary Kate Stimmler, PhD, and I write about using social science to build great workplaces and careers. I’m a practitioner fellow at Stanford’s CASBS, researching intense work. Thanks to JP Elliott, PhD for sharing the Mr. Beast article 😊

They say everything’s urgent. Until urgency costs you $100K. That’s when priorities finally matter. That’s what my customer kept saying. Every email marked “ASAP.” Every request needed “immediate attention.” My team was drowning in priorities. Deadlines slipped. Morale tanked. Focus vanished. Sound familiar? Here’s how we turned chaos into clarity and results: First, we used the Eisenhower Matrix: → True urgency: System outages → Important but planned: Feature releases → Delegate: Minor updates → Eliminate: Nice-to-haves The key? We did this with the customer. They helped categorize each request. Their buy-in made all the difference. Without it, this would’ve been just another failed process. The result? ✔️ Less team overwhelm ✔️ Clearer project milestones ✔️ A happy customer, they got what truly mattered Once we saw it work, I built a playbook every smart leader can use when everything feels urgent: 1. Eisenhower Matrix   → Urgent vs important. Know where to focus.   → Spend less time on fires, more on impact. 2. Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)   → The vital few drive most results.   → Focus on the 20% that matters. 3. Warren Buffett’s 5/25 Rule   → Choose 5 goals, ignore the other 20.   → Focus beats distraction. 4. RICE Method   → Score by reach, impact, confidence, effort.   → Rank smart for maximum return. 5. MoSCoW Method   → Must, Should, Could, Won’t.   → Define essentials, defer the rest. 6. ABCDE Method   → Label tasks A–E, focus on A’s.   → Do must-do’s first, delete E’s. Then, we put structure behind the strategy: 7. Time Blocking — 2 hours of deep client work daily.   → No meetings, no interruptions.   → Pure focus on what matters most. 8. Eat That Frog — tackle the hardest task first.   → Before email, before admin.   → Start strong, stay strong. 9. Batching — group similar tasks for efficiency.   → One focus, many wins. The payoff? ✔️ 3x more client face time ✔️ Smoother operations ✔️ Real work-life balance finally Want simple steps to next level your career with clarity, not chaos? Join my Career Freedom Masterclass 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eM5kKXRc ♻️ Repost to help another leader find focus 👋 Follow Stephanie Hills, Ph.D. for leadership insights that bridge life and work

The 2009 financial crisis wiped out trillions globally. Companies stopped investing in people. Unilever's CEO increased training spend by and made it non-negotiable. Everyone thought it was reckless. A decade later, they called it genius. When Paul Polman walked into Unilever in January 2009, the world was collapsing. Companies everywhere were cutting everything. Travel. Hiring. Training budgets disappeared first. Unilever wasn't immune. Revenue pressure was crushing. Investors wanted cuts. The board expected their new CEO to do what everyone else was doing: survive by slashing costs. Polman made a call that stunned them: training budgets would increase. And it wouldn't be optional. People thought he'd lost his mind. In the middle of a financial meltdown, he was spending more on people? But Polman understood something others didn't:  You don't rebuild a company after a crisis with people you neglected during it. When everyone else was treating employees as costs to manage, he treated them as the reason the company would survive. Here's what that decision proved: 👉 Capability building isn't a reward for good times, it's preparation for hard ones. 👉 Cutting development during a crisis guarantees you're weak when recovery comes. 👉 People don't give their best when they feel expendable. 👉 Readiness is a strategic choice, not a budget line. During his decade as CEO, Unilever didn't just survive; it thrived. Strong returns. Deep leadership bench. When recovery came, they had the only workforce ready to scale. Crises reveal what leaders truly believe about people. Polman chose to invest in readiness when it mattered most. PS: If your organization faced a crisis tomorrow, would you cut training or protect it?

They spent three weeks perfecting the statement. By then, no one cared what they had to say. The crisis had already been defined. The narrative had hardened. And their perfectly crafted response landed like a whisper in an empty room. I see this pattern constantly: Leaders waiting for perfect clarity before they speak. Teams refining messages until every word is bulletproof. Organizations paralyzed by the fear of saying the wrong thing. And while they wait, someone else fills the silence. Here's the hard truth: Perfect, delivered late, loses to good enough, delivered now. In crisis, timing matters more than polish. A decent response in the first three hours beats a flawless one three days later. Waiting for perfect clarity is waiting forever. You'll never have all the information. You'll never eliminate all risk. You'll never craft the statement that pleases everyone. If you're waiting for that, you're not managing a crisis. You're avoiding one. Action creates options. Hesitation eliminates them. When you move—even imperfectly—you shape the conversation. When you wait, the conversation shapes you. The best crisis responders I know aren't perfectionists. They're decision-makers. They assess quickly. They move decisively. They adjust as they go. Because they understand something most people don't: Progress beats perfection. Every time. Follow for weekly insights on decision-making, timing, and action.

We're always told to visualize our success. But here's why it's also important to imagine failure. It's called Crisis Mapping. Hustle culture will encourage you to: → Quit your job → Go big or going home  → Burn the boats on the beach → Leverage out beyond the point of return The Planning Fallacy is a cognitive bias.  People are famously bad at judging how long something will take. But it's often not due to their abilities,  but things out of their control. When you hope for the best and plan for the worst,  you will not only set more realistic timelines,  but get to your outcome faster,  and with less stress. Nobody is exempt from → A lawsuit  → A cyberattack  → A health crisis  → Market changes  → Regulatory changes  → Supply chain issues  → An economic downturn  → Burnout or loss of motivation  → Funding environment changes BUT, you can have contingency plans in place for all of them.  ↳ Hope for the best but plan for the worst. 1. List all potential crises or emergencies your business or project could face.  2. Rank the risks based on their likelihood and potential impact.  3. Identify all key stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, etc.)  and understand how each would be affected during a crisis.  4. Conduct simulations for different crisis scenarios to test plans for weaknesses  5. Regularly review and update your plans to account for new risks P.S. Have you had a crisis map that saved you? (in biz or life)

I've tried 100s of time management techniques.  This is by far my favourite: I used to work 80 hrs/week and call it "productive." When really I was: - Attending pointless meetings - Fighting countless small fires - Being involved in every decision Now I work less than 70% the time and get 4x as much done. The Eisenhower Matrix helped me get there.  It teaches you to categorise tasks by importance and urgency. Here's how it works: 1. Do It Now (Urgent + Important) Examples: - Finalise pitch deck before investor meeting tomorrow. - Fix website crash during peak customer traffic. - Respond to press interview request before deadline. Best Practices: - Attack these tasks first each morning with full focus. - Set a strict deadline so urgency fuels execution. 2. Schedule It (Important + Not Urgent) Examples: - Plan quarterly strategy session with leadership team. - Map long-term hiring plan for next 18 months. - Build a personal brand content system for LinkedIn. Best Practices: - Protect time blocks in advance. Never leave them floating. - Tie them to measurable outcomes, not vague intentions. 3. Delegate It (Urgent + Not Important) Examples: - Handle inbound customer service queries this week. - Organise travel logistics for upcoming conference. - Update CRM with latest sales call notes. Best Practices: - Build playbooks so your team executes without confusion. - Delegate with deadlines to avoid wasting time. 4. Eliminate It (Not Urgent + Not Important) Examples: - Tweak logo colour palette again for fun. - Attend generic networking events with no ICP fit. - Review endless “best productivity tools” articles. Best Practices: - Audit weekly. Cut anything that doesn’t compound long-term. - Replace low-value busywork with rest, thinking, or selling. If you are always reacting to what feels urgent,   You'll never focus on what matters. Attend to the tasks in quadrant 1 efficiently,  Then spend 60-70% of your time in quadrant 2.    That's work that actually builds your business. Which quadrant are you spending too much time in right now?  Drop your thoughts in the comments. My newsletter, Step By Step, breaks down more frameworks like this. It's designed to help you build smarter without burning out. 200k+ builders use it to develop better systems. Join them here:  https://lnkd.in/eUTCQTWb ♻️ Repost this to help other founders manage their time.  And follow Chris Donnelly for more on building and running businesses. 

Every crisis needs two leaders … not one hero to burn. Every time I’ve seen a team drown in a crisis, the problem wasn’t competence. It was that one person was expected to do two impossible jobs at the same time: 1. Lead the team through the actual problem 2. Feed management’s hunger for constant updates Spoiler: You can’t do both at the same time. Here’s what really happens in crisis-mode: • Management wants hourly status reports • Someone above wants slides • Someone else wants “full transparency” • Suddenly you have 3 syncs per day • Everyone wants a hero, not a solution And the person in charge becomes: leader + fire extinguisher + messenger + shield + therapist. The team can’t breathe. The manager can’t think. And the actual problem? Gets solved slower. Here’s the structure that actually works: Crisis Leader A — The Protector Stays with the team. Shields them. Makes decisions. Keeps calm. Moves the solution forward. Crisis Leader B — The Buffer Handles the noise: • escalations • reporting • expectations • stakeholders Crisis Leader B is the wall.  So the team can breathe. So A can actually lead. We burn out great leaders because we force them to cover both roles. Then we act surprised when teams collapse and solutions get sloppy. If you want real crisis leadership: Stop creating superheroes. Start creating structure. A crisis doesn’t need louder management. It needs cleaner responsibilities. One person leads. One person absorbs the chaos. Everything else is burnout dressed up as leadership.  📍Every Tuesday I share real-life reflections about leadership and personality.