What Highly Effective Leaders Understand about Time That Others Don’t

Most leaders aren’t out of time. They’re just spending it wrong.

Most leaders assume they’re maxed out on time. It can certainly feel that way at the end of a busy work week, but the culprit is rarely the calendar. It’s the story leaders tell themselves about their time.  

This is one of the topics time management expert Laura Vanderkam covers in her new book, Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance. Vanderkam has spent years studying how high achievers spend their time to help them identify what’s actually standing in the way.   

According to Vanderkam, many leaders spend a lot of their days in meetings and any non-meeting time responding to emails. 

“The day’s focus can quickly wind up on whether you got to each meeting and answered everything in your inbox, not on what got done,” she shared in an interview with Inc. “It’s helpful to remember that meetings and emails are tools to do your job. They are not the job itself. It helps to ask yourself each week, ‘What is most important to accomplish?’ and whether the work is supporting that.” 

Here are four things Vanderkam recommended for leaders to reclaim time for the work, leisure, and pursuits that matter most. 

1. Stop telling yourself stories. 

“Time blindness” is the gap between how much time you think you have and how much you actually have. Average working hours have been declining over the past few decades, with weekly hours in “professional and business services” in March 2026 estimated at 36.6 hours a week, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  

Yet most leaders are convinced they’re overworked. Without hard data, people build narratives from the moments that feel most demanding. The answer is to track your time. It’s less onerous than it sounds.  

Vanderkam has a free, downloadable time-tracking sheet on her site if you want to try an analog or Excel sheet version. You could also use a free app like Toggl or even enlist an assistant to help. Vanderkam recommended checking in three times a day to note what you’ve done since the last check-in.  

One reason people think they’re working more than they are is because work time is structured, and you are working toward outcome. Family and leisure time, however, often feel more amorphous. A 30-minute bike ride after dinner with the family can be a good reminder that life isn’t all work. 

2. Embrace the golden hours. 

Weekday evenings are the most underestimated stretch in a leader’s week. They can feel like a grind of commuting, preparing food, cleaning up, helping children with homework, taking kids to activities, and getting everyone ready for bed. The hours between work and bed, however, are more reclaimable than most executives realize. 

Start with a single, concrete intention. Decide on one thing you’ll do tonight for 30 minutes that isn’t housework or caregiving. Understandably, the barrier is usually energy, not time.  

Vanderkam encouraged to do “effortful fun” before “effortless fun.” Commit to 10 minutes of a hobby, a book, movement, or a phone call before defaulting to the couch.  

“Most likely you’ll keep going with what you started,” she said. “Because effortful fun is fun once you get over the initial hurdle of getting started.” Even 10 minutes of doing something for you can make the evening feel like yours. 

3. Use a long timeline to accomplish big goals. 

The leaders who consistently move strategic priorities forward aren’t the ones working more hours. They’re the ones who’ve stopped putting off goals because they feel too big. Whether you’re eyeing a leadership development course, a second language, or a distance race, break the commitment into small steps.  

One of the many themes of Big Time is to think broadly about your time. Consider 8,760 hours in a year, not 24 hours in a day or 168 hours in a week. Having a broad perspective with a sizable goal makes it easier to schedule it in. 

To make big things feel doable, give yourself enough time so that every step toward your goal fits easily into the day. 

“If you take a course that’s going to require an hour of focused time a day, you’re going to quickly fall behind and get frustrated,” Vanderkam suggested. “Fifteen minutes a day is more doable though, and the good news is that time does still add up. Leadership development works the same way.” 

4. Design your workday before it designs you. 

The most common complaint Vanderkam hears from leaders is that the day runs them. Meetings compound. You’re getting pinged on Slack or Teams all day. That one team member keeps stopping by your office unannounced. By the time you look up midafternoon, strategic work hasn’t moved forward, and that work satisfaction you initially felt when you took on this role is waning. 

Try to claim some of the day for yourself by blocking out your calendar or starting early. 

“If your meetings start at 9:30 a.m., start work at 8:30 a.m.,” Vanderkam said. “You might be surprised at what you accomplish and then you’ll feel more relaxed with all the interruptions the rest of the day.”