Mastering Time and Focus: A Guide for Engineering Managers
How to reduce stress and achieve more by focusing on what really matters.
Engineering managers have a lot on their plate. We are navigating through complex projects, tight deadlines, and ever-evolving priorities. Working with people, providing feedback and solving conflicts. Let’s not forget about a ton of meetings, syncs and alignments. Most engineering managers rarely have any free time.
But… it shouldn’t be that way. We are here for a long ride, and learning how to manage time and focus is paramount for both our success and our team's success.
In this post, we’ll talk about why it matters so much and share some easy tips to help engineering managers reduce stress while staying on top of it.
What is your goal?
We feel productive when we are busy. Things are moving, the checklist gets checked, and there is a sense of progress. But it’s not necessarily a progress. It’s a movement, for sure. It’s a dopamine hit, instant gratification.
Check yourself all the time. Is what I’m doing have a high impact? Is that something only I can do?
"Don't confuse movement with progress."
~ Denzel Washington.
The problem with time and busyness is not the lack of hours in a day but the lack of clear goals, priorities and boundaries.
You can’t do it all. You also shouldn’t. Your mission is to create an environment for your team to grow professionally and succeed.
There is only so much you can really focus on and impact. Your time is your currency. Knowing that, what do you think you should invest in so your team could grow professionally and succeed?
I would argue that an engineering manager should be focusing on two activities only:
Pursuing high-impact activities
Taking care of self well-being.
Think like an investor. You invest in your team so they can grow and take over more responsibilities. You invest in yourself so you can grow professionally and help others to grow.
Makes sense? Let’s go over the details.
High-impact activity
What is a high-impact task? It’s a task that will impact the probability of success and professional growth of your team or maybe even the whole organisation. We can rephrase it and say high-outcome tasks.
At the end of the day, every manager’s job is to deliver aligned results time after time by aligning everyone on the results and improving your team’s ability to deliver.
Alignment
Focus on activities that create alignment. Gather and share information. Ensure that everyone involved in the project knows and accepts the “WHAT” and the “WHY”.
“The goal of management is to remove obstacles.”
~ Paul Orfalea
Team Performance
Focus on tasks that help improve your team’s ability to deliver. Focus less on the delivery itself but on your team’s ability to deliver.
Writing code or solving technical issues is not a high-impact activity for an engineering manager. Your team consists of somewhere between 3 to 12 engineers whose job is to solve technical issues. Adding yourself to the force usually won’t make much of a difference on the tech side of things. Therefore, it is not a high-impact activity. However, focusing on your team’s knowledge, skills, and motivation is a high-impact activity as these are directly impacting the team’s ability to deliver time over time.
"The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it."
~ Theodore Roosevelt
Andy Grove, the legendary Intel CEO, wrote in his book “High Output Management” that there are four activities for managers to create a positive outcome for the business:
Information gathering
Decision making
Nudging
Being a role model
Information gathering
Every day, you and your team make many decisions. These decisions are based on the information that you have. Your team will always, even unintentionally, put more value to your words. Therefore, the information base that a manager holds is critical.
Gather information from Slack channels and emails. Create a habit of going over the channels once or twice a day with the intention of gathering and sharing information.
Take notes during group meetings.
Build relationships with other managers. First of all, these are smart and interesting people. You can learn from them. Secondly, you will exchange information and learn what they are up to.
Build relationships with other functions in the company. Architects, product managers, engineers, BI, etc. Learn what they are up to and why it’s important. Ask them to update you if something interesting pops up.
Focus on gathering information and sharing what’s relevant and important with your team and others. The information that you have has a high impact on the decisions that you and your team are making.
Decision making
Managers make many small and big decisions. From holiday requests to hiring decisions, setting goals and priorities, and so much more.
Even if you’re acting as a facilitator and creating autonomy where your team makes decisions and acts on them, you’re accountable for the outcome. Therefore, your team’s decisions are your decisions.
Always take decision-making seriously. Every decision is an opportunity to change and improve something. Your decisions build culture and team performance.
Nudging
The concept of nudging is influencing a decision by contributing your own viewpoint to the discussion.
Your daily interactions are full of nudges. You mentor and coach by nudging. You manage up by nudging. It is also a great way to have an influence on the organisation and increase your output as a manager.
Mentor, manage, and steer by nudging. Your input has a high impact.
Being a role model
Managers have an enormous effect on teams. Good managers are leaders. Leaders have followers. These followers became followers because they believe in you and your way of doing things. You are consistent, positive, and < whatever is important in your case/organisation/team>.
You are the representative of the values you want to see in your team. You affect your team’s culture by being an important part of it. If you’re always busy, frustrated and negative, that’s how your team will look like. If you believe in your company’s mission and leadership, have a positive attitude, walk the walk and talk the talk, your team will follow.
Your values and beliefs, actions and attitude have a high impact on your team.
Wellbeing
People under stress often perform poorly due to the physiological and psychological effects of stress on the body and mind. Chronic stress can lead to a variety of physical and mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, digestive issues, headaches, muscle tension, heart disease, high blood pressure, weight gain, and impaired memory and concentration.
As a manager, you have an outsized impact on the lives of your direct reports and teams. According to a 2023 study by The Workforce Institute, managers impact employees’ mental health more than doctors or therapists—and have the same impact as a spouse or partner. Your mood will affect the temperature in the room.
Take care of yourself. Prioritise sleep, exercise, and mental well-being. A healthy manager is a more productive manager with a more productive team.
How to make time
Now, when we’ve discussed what’s important and what’s not, the only thing that’s left for you to do is to prioritise. Ruthlessly.
Is this meeting important? Do I need to review this PR? Is this a high-impact, high-output activity?
Can it be delegated? Who will benefit the most and will do the best job?
Am I overcommitted? What’s draining my energy?
Review your meeting and other activities at least every week.
Ask for a clear agenda for meetings. Ask questions. Many meetings can be taken offline.
Learn to say “no”. Politely. :)
Learn to delegate. Not everything is your responsibility. People in your team might want to take the task, learn something from it and showcase their skills.
Block time in your calendar, and do not accept meetings and messages during that time unless it’s an incident.
Focusing on high-impact activities and prioritising self-care and well-being is the key to your and your team’s success.
WDYT? :)