Reporter's Notebook: Finding the balance with "executive time"
In this Reporter's Notebook, John Dickerson looks at smoke breaks, coffee breaks and "executive time." It doesn't matter whether you're the president or a school principal. It's wise to take your brain from a sprint to a stroll. But what is the right balance of focus versus free thinking? How do we arrange our minutes at work to reach optimum productivity? We search for those answers.
The president's schedule was leaked this week presumably by somebody who works for him and who doesn't think the president works. It showed vast blocks of "executive time," a period during which the president can do anything he pleases.
For the president's critics, the loose-fitting day suggests he's a loafer.
I asked Dan Pink about this. He's the author of "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing." It's a book that can help any of us divide the day productively. He explained there's nothing wrong with "executive time." What's important is what we – and particularly a president – do with our executive time.
A president's job is to lead, more than it is to manage. Those who get this wrong clog up their days with meetings and micromanaging. Because the public misunderstands this, presidents often have to look like they're working to avoid criticism.
But top executives know that free time is important to think about strategy and vision.
A Harvard Business School study found that top CEOs carve out about a quarter of their day for this kind of creative thinking. But other thinking is required, too. Blue sky visions are great and all, but large organizations demand systematic and focused work that is done in those tighter scheduled times.
So we should ask ourselves and our presidents: Are we using the two types of time wisely? Is scheduled time crisp and informative? Is free time generating insights?
Reports from inside the administration suggest structured time is chaotic, and free time – sometimes occupying nearly 60 percent of the day – often coincides with television-inspired tweets.
Pink points us toward President Dwight Eisenhower's quadrant system that he created to help sort priorities. Urgent and important matters require focused time. Important but non-urgent tasks can be handled during executive time. Where we all fall into the bog of woe is when we spend executive time on matters that are urgent but not-important or not-urgent and not important.
That's lost time. Or worse, it's time where fire drills are created that ruin everybody else's day. This is a system that can work for any of us. So, mull it over next time you have some executive time.