Being perpetually interruptible is not high performance

I once heard someone describe your email inbox as a to-do list managed by anyone who happens to have your email address – ouch! And it’s not just email. For so many of us, commitment and high performance can look and feel like being endlessly available, but that’s a trap. The work is endless whereas your time and energy are not. Trouble ensues.

If your day gets filled by whatever arrives first, loudest or most recently, other people’s urgency or inefficiency become your operating model.

As a senior leader, you know the value of your role is rarely found in answering everything quickly. Rather, it’s in the value you bring through your judgement and experience: prioritisation, pattern recognition, creating clarity, seeing around corners.

If you’re perpetually interruptible, that’s impossible to do well. You already know this – but for so many senior leaders, it feels impossible to change. A conundrum. What would need to shift in you, and how you see yourself in relation to your role, to give you the power to start operating differently?

Until next week,

Madeleine

I help accomplished professionals untangle difficult career questions so they can thrive in work and life.

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