Moments and Time.

Forget Time Management live in the moment.

We live in the age of distraction.

It’s one where our relationship with time is changing. The old concepts of time management, we all hold so dear, are no longer feel that helpful either...all a bit yesterday.

Great leaders don’t merely manage calendars or time. Instead, they master moments. If you feel overwhelmed, distracted, and constantly playing catch-up, odds are it’s because you have been managing tasks (and your time) instead of your overall time behaviours.

The wisdom of the Tao is to live in the moment don’t worry about the past, that has already happened, or the future, as that is yet to come.

This is solid advice.

It stops you getting stuck in a doom loop if what ifs and where fors.

I think it is still true, even with the addition of AI there are always too many tasks to do. Like Strategy being eaten by Culture. Tasks eat Time.

There are dozens of things I should be doing right now, instead of writing about time management and wondering if you will find the time to read it.

Of course, you should be reading this Newsletter yesterday (Thursday) rather than today, Friday. This is Newsletter number 148, all but two have come out on a Thursday. This Newsletter is late because my Time Management went awry. Or did it? My Time Management schedule got flexed because I was living fully in some other moments. One’s that I’d have missed if I’d stuck to the planned Newsletter schedule.

To feel as though you are finally getting ahead with your calendar, why do you try to move from merely being a good time manager to becoming a Moment Manager or even better a Moment Master.

If you don’t live in the moment, you miss what is right in front of you here and now.

Defend Your Prime Time

When did you last analyze your calendar with ruthless selfishness? Identify blocks of uninterrupted time you can protect fiercely. Maybe it’s thirty minutes at the start and end of each workday, blocked, private, untouchable to strategize, reflect, or just breathe. Perhaps it’s reserving your Friday afternoons as meeting-free zones.

Treat these moments as sacred; communicate their importance clearly to your team. Protecting prime time frees you from the relentless cycles of meetings, busy work, and perpetual reactions.

Don’t speak to me, I’m having a moment!

Probably best to keep that to yourself.

Be Fully Present

Being a Moment Master demands absolute presence. Stop pretending to listen while secretly checking texts, emails, or editing that slide deck. Shut your laptop, put your mobile away and silence all notifications. Activity Listen with intent. Your half-presence guarantees inefficiency, which is wasted time.

When you are not fully present, you spend twice as long later, scrambling to catch details you missed the first time. Even minor interruptions cause people to take longer to finish tasks and degrade the overall quality of their work.

110% of people perform worse after being interrupted.

Multitasking and frequent task-switching deplete attention resources, making it harder to process information the first time. it leads to rereading, forgetting, and needing to revisit tasks, which extends the total time spent.

Being fully present, ironically saves precious blocks of more moments in your calendar.

Practice Daily Momentness

Being perpetually “on” isn’t impressive; it’s exhausting. Mastering your moments means stepping back, even briefly.

Try a ten-minute midday reset. Step away, close your eyes, and breathe. Or get up from your desk and take a quick solo walk outdoors, clearing your mental clutter and recharging your focus.

Brief moment breaks might feel indulgent, but they are essential investments that sharpen your clarity, effectiveness, and decision-making.

Set Clear Communication Boundaries

Beware: Email and messaging tools are powerful, so it’s not surprising they have become tyrants. You can’t master moments, if you’re constantly tethered to notifications. The leash is unlikely to get looser in the future. What to do?

First, you need to become a bit more selfish. Establish strict boundaries and choose fixed daily intervals to process and reply to communications.

Maybe you handle your emails by limiting it to three check-in times daily—morning, midday, late afternoon. If it’s really important get people to ring, it almost never is really that urgent. Clear expectations ensure you’re no longer held hostage by instantaneous responses, enabling focused, uninterrupted productivity.

Stop judging yourself that speed in responding to emails some someways equals competence, reliability and conscientiousness. It doesn’t.

Second, ask yourself if you have notification-itis. (Inflammation of your notification-cortex) It’s guaranteed to give you a permanent headache. If your mobile phone and laptop are set to notify you with every single possible notification from emails, texts, DMs, and social media, there is a high degree of certainty you will never become a Moment Master.

The most marvelous thing is all these things are within your gift. You don’t need to ask permission of anyone else, and you can go at a pace that is right for you.

You can choose to make and take a moment right now or not.

The Big Question.

When is it the right moment to do something?

I wish I could answer that one! I guess: When opportunity, capability, and willingness align. Or when the cost of not doing becomes more than the cost of doing? Or simply, when it feels right.

Risk is in there, readiness is in there and so is intuition.

💥CTA - Take a moment to get your head around that.