Most of the leaders I coach arrive with the same quiet hope: that I'll give them a system. A better way to run the diary, a prioritisation method, something that finally makes the volume manageable.
I rarely do. Not because systems don't help, but because the problem usually isn't the system. It's that the work has no boundaries, and nobody else is going to draw them.
Here's what I've seen actually work, over fifteen years of this.
Sort before you plan
Overloaded leaders don't have a time problem so much as a sorting problem. Everything arrives looking equally urgent, so it all gets treated as work.
One client of mine sorted her list into four buckets: quick wins, management of her team, long-term project thinking, and genuinely urgent items. Then she asked three questions of what was left. What's only mine to do? What am I keeping out of habit? And what shouldn't be happening at all?
The third pile is always the shocker. Reports nobody reads. A meeting that exists because it has always existed. A process built for a problem that was solved two years ago.
You cannot work your way out of a list that is too long. You can only shorten it, and shortening it is leadership work, not admin.
Book a question, not thinking time
Thinking time is always the first thing to go, because it has no shape and nobody is waiting for it. Everything else has a deadline and a person attached.
So give it a shape. Put 45 minutes in the diary and title it with a question you genuinely need to answer. “What will this service need in 18 months that it hasn't got now?” “Who's ready for more than I'm giving them?”.
A question is much harder to cancel than a blank block, and you arrive already working rather than staring at a wall. Then protect it properly: notifications off, a room with a door, a cup of tea.
Say no nicely
A lot of lost capacity goes on things we said yes to while hoping we wouldn't have to do them.
A boundary isn't a refusal, it's information. “I can't do it this week, but I have time in a couple of weeks.” “I'm happy to do this, but something will have to wait. What do you suggest?”
You're saying no nicely, by being honest about your situation and offering options. Clear is far easier for your colleagues to work with than a yes that quietly doesn't happen.
Delegate in small steps, not all in one go
Delegation fails most often when it's attempted all at once, usually in a moment of overwhelm.
It helps to see it as three separate things: ownership of the work, authority to make decisions, and responsibility for results. You can hand over one without handing over all of them. Tell the person which one you've moved and which you're still holding, then leave it alone for a fortnight.
Build a border
One leader told me she was never not at work — even in the bath she was drafting emails.
Your brain needs a signal that the shift has ended, and without one it assumes it hasn't. A ten-minute walk. A change of clothes. The laptop in a drawer rather than open on the kitchen table.
And do nothing, occasionally
I spent a weekend camping recently with almost no phone signal. The first few hours were uncomfortable. By the end of a long hike, something had loosened; a space had opened up, and everything I'd been worrying about could wait.
We treat doing nothing as wasted time. Often it's the thing that lets the thinking happen.
None of these is complicated. All of them are slightly hard, because each one requires you to decide that your capacity is worth protecting.
If you'd like half an hour to think about which of these would make the most difference for you, I keep space each month for a free conversation with a leader I haven't met. Just reply to this email.
About me
I’m Ruth, a leadership coach and facilitator with over fifteen years’ experience in a range of large, complex organisations, including the NHS and NGO's. Most of the women I work with are brilliant at what they do but quietly exhausted by it — leading teams, holding everything together, and wondering where they went in the middle of it all. I help them stop just coping and start leading with clarity and confidence: getting their time back, finding their voice with the people above them, and remembering that they’re allowed to enjoy their work and their life.
I coach one to one, design leadership programmes, and bring teams together, but at the heart of all of it is a simple belief: you don’t have to run yourself into the ground to be a brilliant leader.
If any of this sounds like you, if you’re stretched thin, stepping into something bigger, or just want a warm, honest space to think, I’d love to hear from you. Come and have a conversation with me.