Is This the Best Use of My Time?

Have you ever sat down at your desk determined to finish an important project, only to look up an hour later and realize you have reorganized a shared drive, answered three emails that didn’t require an immediate response, helped a colleague find a document they could have found themselves, and spent 20 minutes adjusting the formatting on a spreadsheet so it looks nicer?

You have been busy, and you’ll feel tired and maybe even satisfied with your accomplishments when you get home. You may even have crossed several things off your list and clearly added extra items that weren’t even on your list. They weren’t a total waste of your time, but were they the best use of your time?

If you’ve attended any of my Time Mastery workshops, you know I tell everyone to write that question on a Post-It note and stick it to their monitor. It reminds us that the goal isn’t simply to work hard. It is to work on the things that make the best use of our time.

Time management is not simply about getting everything done, hopefully on time and done well. It is about deciding what deserves your attention in the first place. The question we need to keep asking is, “Is this the best use of my time?”

That can be especially difficult for many of us because much of our work involves supporting other people. Their priorities arrive in our inbox with exclamation marks. Their forgotten deadlines become our emergencies. Their requests often sound urgent, even when they aren’t particularly important.

Before you know it, you have spent your entire day completing other people’s priorities while your own important work gets pushed to tomorrow. Again.

So while “Is this the best use of my time?” is a great question, let me add four more to your list. And to make them all easy to remember, they all begin with M.

1. Does it Matter?

I’m looking at my to-do list for today, and if I’m being honest with myself, not everything I have written down deserves to be there. Some things are on my list because it’s a task I have always done and enjoy. Some things on my list are important to me, but not especially important to anyone else.

And I know I’m not alone. Sometimes we produce reports no one reads, attend meetings where we contribute nothing, and copy people on emails because someone once told us to many years ago.

One admin recently told me she spent nearly two hours every month preparing a detailed departmental report. One day, her manager casually mentioned that he only looked at the one-paragraph summary at the top. No one had asked for the other six pages in years, but she kept producing them because they had always been part of the report.

Before starting a task, ask, “Does this still matter?” And then ask yourself:

• What would happen if you stopped doing it?
• Would anyone notice?
• Would the quality of the work suffer?
• Would there be a genuine consequence, or would everyone carry on quite nicely?

Eliminating unnecessary work isn’t laziness; it is good judgment. 

2. Must it be Me?

Administrative professionals are often extremely capable, and we know that is both a strength and a trap.

Because you can do something quickly and correctly, people bring it to you. Eventually, you become the only person who knows how to update the contact list, order supplies, book a meeting room, submit an expense claim, or find the mysterious form hidden on the intranet. But being able to do something does not automatically make it the best use of your time.

Imagine that you are preparing the briefing package for tomorrow’s executive meeting when a colleague asks you to help reformat a document. You know it will take “only five minutes,” so you say yes. Then someone else needs help with the printer. Another person wants you to book a restaurant. Forty-five minutes later, your briefing package is still waiting.

Before you fall into the trap of spending your day on everyone else’s priorities, ask yourself, “Must this be done by me?”

Could the person requesting help do it themselves with a little direction? Could another team member handle it? Could you create instructions so people no longer need to ask you every time?

Delegation is not reserved for managers. Sometimes it means redirecting a request to the right person. Sometimes it means teaching someone rather than continually rescuing them.

3. Can I Mechanize It?

I’ll admit that “mechanize” is not a word most of us use every day, but it gives us our third M! I could have used “automate,” but I was determined to find another M word. And yes, I did ask myself whether that was the best use of my time!

Look for work that is repetitive, predictable, and based on rules (such as Outlook rules). Those are excellent candidates for a template, checklist, standard response, recurring reminder, email rule, form, or automated workflow.

For instance, perhaps you send essentially the same instructions to every new employee as part of the onboarding process. Instead of rewriting that email each time, create a polished template. If you repeatedly chase people for information before a monthly meeting, schedule the requests in advance or build a simple form that collects everything in one place.

Remember when you learned to set up rules in your email program? It was a flash of “Why hadn’t I done this before?” Those simple rules have saved many of us a surprising amount of time and repetitive effort. It’s a simple fix, but it delivers real results. 

We often avoid these simple fixes because setting them up takes time. Instead of focusing on how long it will take to automate something, ask yourself, “How much time will this save me next week, next month, or next year?”

4. Must it be Now?

Urgency can be contagious, and it’s easy to get caught up not only in your own emergencies, but in everyone else’s too.

An email arrives, and we answer it immediately; a message pops up, and we abandon the report we were writing; or someone appears at our desk, and we instantly switch our attention to chat with them and deal with their issues.

Their priority has now become our priority, often without either person consciously deciding that it should.

Before changing direction, ask yourself, “Must it be now?”

Perhaps the request is important but can wait until 2:00 p.m., or you can finish your current task before responding. Maybe it belongs on tomorrow’s list. Delaying something is not the same as ignoring it. It means giving it an appropriate place in your schedule.

You might say, “I can help you with that after I finish the agenda,” or “I’m working against a deadline right now. Will 3:00 p.m. work?”

That is not being unhelpful. It is protecting your ability to do all your work well, including theirs.

You will never reach the end of a workday with absolutely nothing left to do. There will always be another email, request, correction, meeting, or deadline waiting. Although we may be reluctant to admit it, the goal isn’t really to get everything done immediately. The goal is to use your time intentionally.

So, when you catch yourself rushing toward the next task, pause and ask:

• Does It Matter?
• Must It Be Me?
• Can I Mechanize It?
• Must It Be Now?

And finally, ask the question that ties them all together: “Is this the best use of my time?” Sometimes the answer will be yes. Sometimes it will be a very clear no.

The power is in stopping long enough to ask.