Why a quarter
A year is too far away to change habits, and a week is too short to see whether a change worked. A quarter, about 90 days, is long enough to try new ways of working and short enough to stay honest about whether they're holding. This exercise takes a couple of hours, alone or with a coach.
Step 1: Look at the last month
Print or export your calendar for the past four weeks. Mark each block:
- Only I can do this. Work that genuinely needs you.
- Someone else could. Work you're holding out of habit, speed or worry.
- Could stop. Meetings and reports nobody would miss.
- Recovery. Time that actually restored you.
Most leaders find the second and third groups are larger than expected, and the fourth is almost empty.
Step 2: Choose three changes
Not ten. Three. For example: hand one recurring decision to a deputy; cancel or halve one standing meeting; block two mornings a week for thinking work. Write each as something you'll do, not something you'll try.
Step 3: Protect recovery
Put recovery in the calendar first, the way you'd schedule a board meeting: an evening a week with no messages, a real weekend each month, a vacation date for the quarter. Tell the people who need to know. Recovery that waits for a quiet week doesn't happen.
Step 4: Prepare the conversations
Most changes need someone else's agreement: a boss, a board chair, a co-founder, a deputy, a partner at home. List the conversations, what you'll ask for, and what you'll offer in return. Have them in the first two weeks, before the old pattern reasserts itself.
Step 5: Set up check-ins
Put three short reviews in your calendar now: at 30, 60 and 90 days. At each one, ask: Did I make the three changes? What happened? What crept back? What's the next adjustment? A coach or a trusted peer can hold you to these, which is often the difference between a plan and a habit.
Step 6: Plan for the crunch
Every quarter has a predictable crunch: budget season, a launch, a quarter-end close, a legislative session. Decide in advance which of your three changes you'll keep through it, and which you'll pause and when you'll restart them.
At the end of the quarter
Look at your calendar again and compare it with the first month. Keep what worked, drop what didn't, and choose the next three changes. Over a year, four small rounds of change add up to a very different job.
A worked example
A regional operations leader finds that a third of her past month went to approval meetings for spending she could delegate. Her three changes: raise her deputy's approval limit, cancel the weekly status meeting in favor of a written update, and block Friday afternoons for planning. She agrees the approval change with her boss in week one, tells her team about Fridays, and at the 30-day check-in finds the Friday block has slipped twice. She moves it to Thursday morning, when fewer requests arrive, and keeps going.
A note on limits
This is a planning exercise, not healthcare. If you've been feeling persistently low, unable to sleep for weeks, or unlike yourself, talk to a doctor or mental health professional; the crisis line at the foot of this page is there for urgent situations.
Using the plan with your team
Share the parts of your plan that affect others. If you're handing a decision to a deputy, say so publicly so people stop routing it to you. If you're protecting two mornings a week, tell your assistant and your direct reports what can and can't interrupt them. Changes that only live in your head tend to erode in the first busy week.
The directory's part
ExecutiveBurnoutPros can introduce you to one independent coach serving your area who works on exactly this kind of planning.