An Executive Time Management System

When I started working as an executive it became apparent that the skills I learned as an engineer were enough to get me the job, but I would need to work on different skills in order to stay. One of the hardest problems was nothing I haven’t heard of before: time management. I joined JP Morgan’s Checkout group as an Engineer and in less than a year became the Director of Frontend Engineering, Design, and UX Research. In short, I really did it to myself this time. I was grateful for this major growth opportunity but wasn’t sure how I would measure up to the challenge. Eventually, my tech lead work partner Sean Cady casually mentioned how I should think about “where best to spend your Hova-Bucks”. You only have so many “Bucks” (aka “time”), so focusing on what you spend your time on was paramount. In theory, this is cake. After all, just spend the time on important things! It’s all fun and games until you have a million projects and each has a stakeholder sending petty emails (…and CC-ing your boss). Adding to the tragedy of it all, no matter how hard you try to bend space and time you can not manifest more workable hours in a day. Everyone is vying for your time so you have to actively communicate what you are working on and why with what little time you do have.

My life usually gets better if I just listen to Sean. After he started mentioning “Hova-Bucks” in relation to time, i’ve been absolutely systemic about what I spend my time on and why. As of right now I have landed on what I’m calling the “Hova Executive Time Management System”. This…