How to Perform a Time Leadership Portfolio Analysis
If you’re just doing your job the best you can, then this article may not be for you. However, if you have multiple things going at once, from side hustles to learning projects, then what follows can be tremendously useful. For me, it is now an annual reflection and planning activity.
You likely say yes to lots of things, and are dabbling in side projects, perhaps exploring some career moves, maybe trying to multiply your earnings through investing in anything from the stock market to property. There’s a lot of things on your plate, and you have no desire to change that fact. However, since your plate runneth over, it likely needs to be managed a bit.
Are you saying no to stuff because it’s the right thing to say no to, or are you saying no because you are just completely filled up?
Enter the very subjective Time Leadership Portfolio Analysis. I didn’t even name this until writing this article, it was just something I did, but it needed a name. Why Time Leadership? Because time management is how you manage everything on your plate. Time Leadership, on the other hand, is about deciding what should be on your plate, and what shouldn’t be. It’s the big brother to time management. Your time and attention is valuable. Manage it as if it was.
How to do it: Draw a chart, on the Y axis is the value (or money, if you prefer) it provides and X is the time (or effort, if that makes more sense) it consumes. Now break your stuff into various elements, as granular as you can. For example, for me, I work on my ACT with Purpose Advisor clients, develop content for the Learning Lab, serve on boards, volunteer time, write, invest with money, invest in learning, and a few more. Each item is marked on the grid to see where it belongs. Now, to be clear, “value” is highly subjective, so I leave that to you to figure out.
For every item on that grid, as yourself:
- Should I still be doing this? Start here, because if the answer is no, then the other questions don’t matter.
- How do I increase the value of the item without increasing its time consumption?
- How do I decrease the time consumption without decreasing the value it provides?
There are zero easy answers to these questions. If you find there were easy answers, then that only proves how much you needed this exercise. But it provides critical thinking to your most valuable resource: you.
Let me know how it goes.