For leaders who are too time-poor to use leadership supports
The EA movement wants better leadership and management, and the supports exist — funding, coaching and talent. However, it seems some leaders are too overwhelmed, burnt out and time-poor to use them.
There’s good prior writing on burnout itself — Elizabeth’s “Burnout: What is it and how to Treat it” — but my focus here is on what sits underneath it: the quiet belief of ‘not enough’, and one practical way to start loosening its grip.
How can you get funding if you don’t have enough time to speak with funders? How can you make good hiring decisions when you’re exhausted? And how can you do leadership or management training if there’s no space in your calendar?
Working IN versus ON the organisation
You need to work both ON the org and IN the org — laying out the strategy, vision and succession planning, while you’re also busy working IN the execution of key projects and initiatives. Doing both is difficult for mission-driven, passionate and ambitious leaders who want to deliver results, but that ambition is also why we need you thinking long term simultaneously.
So then, when will you get time? Or will you just be chasing the horizon?
One simple step: free up one hour
Free up 60 minutes of deep work this week to plan the future of your organisation by declining or cancelling one meeting, or converting it to a written update — that’s your hour. Then, protect it like you’d protect a meeting with a funder or other key stakeholder. Make it a non-negotiable.
Also, know your concentration budget. I have about 4–5 hours of real concentration a day, 20–25 a week. Some days I can do more, but it evens out — and breaching it pushes me towards burnout. What’s your number? Allocate deep work against that number, not against your calendar’s empty slots.
Strategic work is important but rarely urgent — which is exactly why it loses to everything else unless you give it a fixed place in the calendar. Protecting that hour will feel uncomfortable at first, maybe even indulgent. But that’s normal.
Then, once you’ve freed up time in week one, you’ll be able to use that time to free up one hour every week going forward, setting a placeholder in your calendar when you have both the mental time and space to chart the path forward.
Not everything needs to be done — but some things absolutely must be. If you’re too busy to reflect and improve, you’re too busy driving to stop for petrol.
Underneath overwhelm there’s usually one belief: ‘not enough’
A pattern I’ve seen repeatedly across 11+ years of coaching leaders, including recently in this space, is a quiet belief underneath the packed calendar — “not enough”. Not enough time, not enough results, not enough impact — so every meeting feels unmissable and every task feels urgent.
Sometimes the shortage is real, but often the skill isn’t doing more; it’s recognising when good is good enough — when the result is will do for today. Then, with fresh energy and concentration, more progress can be made tomorrow.
Everything else is downstream of this dynamic — we overwork because we feel the results are not enough, we don’t have boundaries because we feel we’re not doing enough already, and try to do everything because simply doing the role doesn’t feel enough. If we don’t nip this in the bud, the risk is it transfers to the next role, and even other parts of our lives.
Remember: calling today’s work good enough isn’t lowering your standards. It’s what gives you the time, energy and space to work on what matters long-term — that’s a good trade in my books.
And consider what a funder would rather see: someone focused 100% on delivery, or someone working both IN and ON the org. I know, it’s difficult, it feels like an internal conflict, but that’s the skill to cultivate.
Of course, you know there’s always more you could do, more ways to help, a bigger impact to chase — but you also know you need to be fresh and clear to do your highest-value strategic work. The one-hour tactic will only survive contact with a busy week if you make this fundamental mindset shift.
For leaders who are too time-poor to use leadership supports
The EA movement wants better leadership and management, and the supports exist — funding, coaching and talent. However, it seems some leaders are too overwhelmed, burnt out and time-poor to use them.
There’s good prior writing on burnout itself — Elizabeth’s “Burnout: What is it and how to Treat it” — but my focus here is on what sits underneath it: the quiet belief of ‘not enough’, and one practical way to start loosening its grip.
How can you get funding if you don’t have enough time to speak with funders? How can you make good hiring decisions when you’re exhausted? And how can you do leadership or management training if there’s no space in your calendar?
Working IN versus ON the organisation
You need to work both ON the org and IN the org — laying out the strategy, vision and succession planning, while you’re also busy working IN the execution of key projects and initiatives. Doing both is difficult for mission-driven, passionate and ambitious leaders who want to deliver results, but that ambition is also why we need you thinking long term simultaneously.
So then, when will you get time? Or will you just be chasing the horizon?
One simple step: free up one hour
Free up 60 minutes of deep work this week to plan the future of your organisation by declining or cancelling one meeting, or converting it to a written update — that’s your hour. Then, protect it like you’d protect a meeting with a funder or other key stakeholder. Make it a non-negotiable.
Also, know your concentration budget. I have about 4–5 hours of real concentration a day, 20–25 a week. Some days I can do more, but it evens out — and breaching it pushes me towards burnout. What’s your number? Allocate deep work against that number, not against your calendar’s empty slots.
Strategic work is important but rarely urgent — which is exactly why it loses to everything else unless you give it a fixed place in the calendar. Protecting that hour will feel uncomfortable at first, maybe even indulgent. But that’s normal.
Then, once you’ve freed up time in week one, you’ll be able to use that time to free up one hour every week going forward, setting a placeholder in your calendar when you have both the mental time and space to chart the path forward.
Not everything needs to be done — but some things absolutely must be. If you’re too busy to reflect and improve, you’re too busy driving to stop for petrol.
Underneath overwhelm there’s usually one belief: ‘not enough’
A pattern I’ve seen repeatedly across 11+ years of coaching leaders, including recently in this space, is a quiet belief underneath the packed calendar — “not enough”. Not enough time, not enough results, not enough impact — so every meeting feels unmissable and every task feels urgent.
Sometimes the shortage is real, but often the skill isn’t doing more; it’s recognising when good is good enough — when the result is will do for today. Then, with fresh energy and concentration, more progress can be made tomorrow.
Everything else is downstream of this dynamic — we overwork because we feel the results are not enough, we don’t have boundaries because we feel we’re not doing enough already, and try to do everything because simply doing the role doesn’t feel enough. If we don’t nip this in the bud, the risk is it transfers to the next role, and even other parts of our lives.
Remember: calling today’s work good enough isn’t lowering your standards. It’s what gives you the time, energy and space to work on what matters long-term — that’s a good trade in my books.
And consider what a funder would rather see: someone focused 100% on delivery, or someone working both IN and ON the org. I know, it’s difficult, it feels like an internal conflict, but that’s the skill to cultivate.
Of course, you know there’s always more you could do, more ways to help, a bigger impact to chase — but you also know you need to be fresh and clear to do your highest-value strategic work. The one-hour tactic will only survive contact with a busy week if you make this fundamental mindset shift.