Why time management doesn’t work (and what to do instead) – Business Focus Episode 9

If you feel like there are never enough hours in the day, you are not alone.

Most leaders try to solve that feeling with time management: better calendars, tighter schedules, more productivity hacks. But as Ron Schwarz, founder of Brass Tacks, explains on Business Focus with host Brendan Ritchie, the real issue is not time at all.

It is choice management.

You cannot create more hours. You can only change how you choose to spend them.

This article distils their conversation into practical tactics you can apply this week to get closer to a work and life rhythm that actually reflects what matters most to you.

Time is not money – it is your universal currency

We often say “time is money”, but Ron makes a subtle, powerful shift: time is currency.

Listen to how we talk:

• We spend time with people
• We pay attention to something
• We invest time in our hobbies or careers

That is financial language. But unlike money, you cannot earn more hours. You only ever have 24 per day.

So the real game is not squeezing more in. It is being more deliberate about the trade-offs you make:

If you are working late, you are not with your kids.
If you are with your kids, you are not at the gym.
If you are at the gym, you are not deep in that strategic project.

You are making trade-offs all day, every day, whether you acknowledge them or not. And as Ron points out, not deciding is still a decision. When you do not actively choose, you are quietly deprioritising something else.

The good news: there are simple, practical structures that can help.

Step 1: Build a solid foundation

You cannot manage choices without a clear foundation. For Ron, that foundation is made up of two things:

1. Personal goals
2. Company goals

If you are not clear on what “success” looks like for you and your organisation, you will say yes to everything and move meaningfully on nothing.

On top of those goals, you need a prioritisation framework. One common example is the Eisenhower Matrix, which sorts tasks by:

• Urgent and important
• Important but not urgent
• Urgent but not important
• Neither urgent nor important

The point is not which framework you choose. The point is to stop treating everything as equally important.

From there, design an ideal week:

• When are you at your best for deep thinking?
• When are you naturally better at meetings and conversations?
• When do your clients or team need you most?

Ron works with many US-based clients, so his days start early. He does not schedule creative thinking for late afternoons when his energy is lowest. Monday mornings, when his American clients are still in Sunday, are blocked for deep thinking.

Your ideal week will be different, but the principle is the same: be intentional, not reactive. You may never hit your ideal perfectly, but you will be far closer than if you simply let your calendar happen to you.

Step 2: Put scaffolding around your decisions

Once the foundation is set, you need scaffolding, structures that help you stick to your intentions when life gets noisy.

Ron suggests three types of scaffolding.

1. A support team

Big changes rarely happen in isolation. Your “team” might include:

• Your partner or family
• Your direct reports and peers
• Your manager or board
• A coach, mentor or peer group

These are people you trust and respect. Their job is to call you out when your day-to-day choices no longer line up with what you said matters.

One of Ron’s clients was working on talking less and listening more in meetings. Her team agreed on a code word they could use when she was starting to dominate. When they used it, she had to stop talking.

That level of openness did two things:

• It helped her change faster
• It signalled a culture of honesty and vulnerability that clients actually found attractive

The message: invite people you trust to help you stay honest.

2. A system you can trust (not just your brain)

As Ron puts it, your brain is not a reliable system. Rely on it alone, and things will slip.

You need visible, external systems:

• Calendars with time blocked for important work
• Tasks with clear due dates
• Colour-coded entries aligned to your goals (for example: strategy, clients, people, health)

Colour-coding is particularly powerful. With a quick glance at your week, you can see if your time allocation matches your priorities. If you have a massive people-leadership goal and only 30 minutes with your team all week, something needs to shift.

For those who are colour blind, icons or labels can achieve the same effect. The key is a visual cue that makes misalignment obvious.

3. Audits and regular reflection

Scaffolding is not “set and forget”. You also need an audit process.

Every month or quarter, look back over your calendar and ask:

• How did I actually spend my time?
• Does that match what I say is most important?
• What needs to change in the next period?

On a shorter cadence, build in weekly reflection:

• What went well this week?
• What did not?
• What will I do differently next week?

Some people do a quick review on Friday afternoon during the commute home. Others block 30–60 minutes on Monday morning to review and plan. The best system is the one you will actually use.

Step 3: Water what matters and weed what does not

Ron uses a simple garden metaphor:

• Some things need to be watered – they are important and worth your ongoing time and energy.
  Some things need to be weeded – they may have crept in, but they do not belong in your garden.

Watering is straightforward: use your goals and prioritisation framework to decide what deserves consistent attention.

Weeding is harder, because it often means saying no:

• No to meetings without a clear purpose or outcome
• No to tasks that are not aligned with your role or goals
• No to work that could and should be done by someone else

One of Ron’s clients, a general manager in retail, introduced a simple rule: every meeting invite had to include the desired outcome and the key questions to be answered. If those were missing, he declined the meeting.

He only had to do that twice. People got the message quickly, and he reclaimed 20–25% of his calendar.

Other practical weeding tools:

• A “not to-do” list beside your to-do list
• Defaulting to “not now” rather than automatic yes
• Bundling similar meetings and tasks into blocks so they do not sprawl across the week

And remember Parkinson’s law: work expands to fill the time you give it. The antidote is knowing what “done” looks like. Once you have achieved that, stop. Move on.

Life is a series of trade-offs, make better ones

The episode finishes with a reminder that is both confronting and freeing:

You cannot do everything. Bigger results usually require bigger trade-offs.
The real question is not “Do you want to be great at this?”
The real question is “What are you willing to give up to be great at this?”

You will never find more time. But you can absolutely make better choices about how you use the time you have.

Set your foundation. Build your scaffolding. Water what matters. Weed what does not.

And if you want to go deeper into these ideas, including real client stories and practical examples, listen to the full conversation with Ron Schwarz on Business Focus:

🎧 Choice management, decision management, and making the most of your time with Ron Schwarz, founder of Brass Tacks.