Let’s talk about overwhelm. Because if you’re leading at the director level or above, chances are it’s your constant background noise.

So what do most leaders do when things feel out of control? They open up their calendar and start counting hours. Inbox time, Meeting overload, Slack, pings, dings, and drive-bys.

They try to fix it with a time management audit. Fair, logical, respectable.

But also, totally beside the point.

The real issue isn’t your schedule, it’s your job.

Because the role you’re doing right now, It’s a Frankenstein monster of priorities, wishlists, reorg leftovers, and “can you just…”

You’re overwhelmed because your role is unowned. You’re reacting because the job keeps shifting under your feet. And you’re exhausted because half of what you’re doing, doesn’t belong to you.

Stop managing your time, Start managing your mandate.

You don’t need a better calendar. You need a Role Audit. One that says, What only I should be doing, What I should be handing off, What I should stop owning altogether

You’re not a time problem, You’re a clarity problem.

I was talking with a client a few weeks ago—let’s call him Ravi.

“Every day feels like I’m just reacting,” he said. “Everyone’s behind on something. Someone’s stuck. A launch is on fire. My calendar is trashed by noon.”

I asked him, “What’s the job you were hired to do?”

He paused. “Set the product strategy, build the roadmap, and make sure we’re hitting company goals.”

“Cool,” I said. “And what did you do yesterday?”

That’s when he laughed. “I helped a junior PM write a JIRA ticket, sat in on a marketing planning call to stop the bickering, spent an hour untangling a pricing issue from Sales.”

I told him, “You don’t need to optimize your calendar. You need to own your role. Because you’re doing a job that no longer exists on paper, but everyone still depends on.”

We pulled out the Role Audit tool and started mapping it: What only he could do (and what lit him up), What the team could own if he got out of the way, What had to stop or get delegated with boundaries.

The outcome? A reset. Not just of time, Of responsibility, Of clarity.

Here’s what changed:

• Strategic planning time doubled. Ravi went from spending just six hours a week on real strategy to blocking twelve hours where no one else could touch it.

• Slack messages dropped by 40 percent. With new ownership lines drawn, the team stopped pinging him for every decision and started solving things without him.

• Executive trust rebuilt. His CEO actually noticed the shift. Ravi wasn’t just reacting anymore. He was steering. He became the leader they thought they hired in the first place.

Once he got clear on what to own, his team got clearer on what they could own.

The fog lifted, the pings slowed down, and strategy finally got airtime.

Call to Action: Want to find the work only you should be doing?

Start here: ☕ Book a 30-minute Virtual Coffee with Me to map your own Role Audit

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Because being the CEO of your area means doing your job, not everyone else’s.