Leading when your calendar is full (and your brain is empty)

One thing I keep learning: growing a company life The Flock isn’t just about scaling teams, revenue, or clients. It’s also about protecting your attention—because if you lose that, the rest starts to wobble.

This week: 👉 How I try to stay effective when there’s no space left on the calendar and a hundred things fighting for attention. Three simple habits, a few resources, and something you can try with your team.

⏳ 1. Default to less, but with intention

When your days are packed, decision quality erodes quietly.

What’s been helping:

• Starting the week with three non-negotiables—the few things that, if done, make the week a win.
• Cancelling meetings with no clear owner, no decision to make, or no prep.
• Scheduling empty blocks as if they were investor calls—untouchable.

🧠 Why it matters: Leadership isn’t about touching everything—it’s about touching the right things at the right time.

💡 Reading:

• The “Hell Yes” Rule – Derek Sivers
• Make Time – Knapp & Zeratsky
• McKinsey Quarterly: 2025 Insights: Their latest issue has a strong piece on prioritizing leadership focus in a high-noise, high-change environment.

📍 2. Anchor decisions in context, not noise

Urgency often disguises itself as importance. If you let Slack or your inbox dictate your day, you’re leading reactively.

What’s been helping:

• Linking weekly goals to 3 quarterly priorities so every decision has context.
• Asking “Will this still matter in 3 months?” before committing.
• Splitting meetings into decisions versus discussions—and eliminating the latter unless truly necessary.

🧠 Why it matters: Clarity compounds—when the big picture is visible, small calls get faster and better.

💡 Good reads:

• MIT Sloan: How to Lead Future-Ready Organizations – Clear, actionable ideas for leading through uncertainty.
• The Eisenhower Matrix – Still one of the simplest filters for what deserves your time.
• Farnam Street – Decision-Making Matrix.

🛑 3. Lead by enabling, not by solving

In busy weeks, it’s tempting to “just fix it” when a team member hits a roadblock. But as HBR points out, every time you solve instead of guide, you trade short-term speed for long-term capacity.

What’s been helping:

• Asking “What options do you see?” before answering.
• Setting a decision deadline, not providing the decision itself.
• Giving context so the team can decide in alignment, even when I’m not in the room.

🧠 Why it matters: Your job is to make better decision-makers, not just better decisions.

💡 More to explore:

The place that travel writer Pico Iyer would most like to go? Nowhere. In a counterintuitive and lyrical meditation, Iyer examines the profound insight that comes with making time for stillness. In our world of constant movement and distraction, he shares strategies that we can all use to reclaim a few minutes each day, or even a few days each season. It's the talk for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the demands of our world.

🧭 Try this with your team

Run a calendar cleanse:

1. Export the last 2 weeks of your team’s calendar.
2. Label each event: decision / information / habit / noise.
3. Delete one “noise” slot for every team member next week.
4. Reclaim that time for thinking, prep, or mentoring.

You’ll find productivity doesn’t drop—it improves.

🔎 Stuff worth clicking

• 🎥 TED: The Power of Time Off – Stefan Sagmeister
• 📄 HBR: Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time
• 📚 Essentialism – Greg McKeown
• Winning Remote Work Strategies: Tools, Routines, and Talent to Boost Team Output - by The Flock.

👀 Up next

The hardest part of leading isn’t starting—it’s keeping momentum when growth slows down.

—Rami