I am currently the owner sitting in four different seats, and my biggest struggle is context-switching. I find myself neglecting the long-term strategic seats because the daily transactional seats scream the loudest. How do I allocate my weekly hours across these four seats so nothing fails while we build the cash to hire?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When you are an owner wearing multiple hats on your [Accountability Chart](/qa/how-can-ai-optimize-the-accountability-chart-for-eos-organizations-undergoing-exit-planning), context-switching is a silent killer. It's natural to gravitate towards the urgent, transactional seats like sales or customer service because they demand immediate attention. This often leads to neglecting your strategic seats, such as the Visionary or Integrator roles.

To navigate this phase effectively while building the necessary cash to hire, you must manage your week with strict, separate appointments for each seat. Avoid the temptation to juggle all four seats simultaneously throughout the day. Instead, dedicate specific blocks of time in your weekly calendar to each role.

Allocate Your Time Strategically

Here's a breakdown of how to approach this time allocation:

• Dedicated Blocks: Divide your week into distinct time blocks for each seat.
• For example, reserve Monday morning exclusively for your Visionary seat to focus on long-term strategy and critical relationships.
• Allocate Tuesday and Thursday mornings to your Operations seat.
• Dedicate Wednesday afternoon to your Sales seat.

• Role-Specific Focus: During these blocks, commit to working solely on the responsibilities defined for that specific seat. If you're in your Sales block, resist the urge to address operations issues. This disciplined approach prevents distractions and ensures you give each role the focused attention it requires. For more on defining these roles, consider how to avoid [seat overlapping issues](/qa/resolving-accountability-chart-seat-overlaps).

Leverage Thinking Time

In addition to dedicated seat blocks, integrate Keith Cunningham's concept of Thinking Time into your routine.

• Scheduled Reflection: Set aside 45 minutes, twice a week, with just a pen and pad.
• Strategic Focus: Use this time to concentrate solely on the big-picture, strategic questions of your business. This practice forces you to step away from daily firefighting and keeps your high-level seats, like the Visionary, alive and engaged. This dedicated time can be crucial for an owner, especially when designing the next iteration of the [Accountability Chart for an exit](/qa/thinking-time-accountability-chart-exit-prep).

Treating your seats as distinct jobs with separate, allocated hours is the only way to maintain your sanity and drive progress before you can delegate these responsibilities to others. If you're looking for guidance on which seat to delegate first, exploring your [conative profile](/qa/how-to-delegate-four-seats-using-kolbe) might provide valuable insights.

Related questions

• [How do I know if my business is actually ready for a clean exit, or if I am just burning out and need to fix my internal operations first?](/qa/business-exit-readiness-vs-founder-burnout)
• [I am currently acting as both the Visionary and the Integrator in our business, but I am completely overwhelmed and running out of steam. How do I know it is actually time to hire a dedicated Integrator, and what is the first step?](/qa/when-to-hire-coo-integrator)
• [I want to sell my business in three years but I am currently stuck in the Sales and Marketing seat, and I cannot afford a high-priced replacement yet. How do I transition out?](/qa/stuck-in-sales-seat-before-exit)
• [How do the Visionary and Integrator handle a disagreement when they are completely deadlocked on a major strategic decision?](/qa/visionary-integrator-deadlock-resolution)