Being a manager is fundamentally a juggling act, constantly switching roles. If you don’t streamline your schedule, you risk being swamped by endless meetings and a plethora of superficial tasks.
If your goal is for your team to significantly contribute to the growth of your company, you need ample time for deep work and strategic thinking. Problem-solving, even at middle management levels, typically demands that you’ve absorbed a wealth of information, grasped the balance of power within the company, and devoted sufficient time to understanding incentives and people’s true desires.
To achieve this, you need time to think. You require plenty of mental bandwidth, as stated in Power. Why some people have it and others dont:
Structured reflection takes time. It also requires the discipline to concentrate, make notes, and think about what you are doing. But it is very useful in building a path to power.