How a busy CTO got back control over his time and calendar with Headroom Executive Assistants
The Challenge
- Successful CTO at a fast-growing full-stack data science company
- He struggled to keep a clear overview and often worked 9-10 hours a day
- He needed an EA to achieve a healthier work life balance for himself and his family
How Headroom helped:
- Identified and mapped all the different workstreams and departments he was involved in
- Categorized types of projects and tasks based on whether they were urgent, ongoing etc
- Created dedicated sub-folders for a clear overview of ongoing communications for each project or client
The Key Results
- Not working weekends and evenings anymore
- He doesn’t have to deal with more than 20 emails at a time
- He’s way more focused, structured and stays on top of things
- He’s earning back 25-30 hours a month
The Challenge:
This full-stack data science agency is growing fast across Europe. And as the company grows, its executives are taking over new and more complex functions and responsibilities.
Joe joined the company as Director and was involved in many different projects and departments. This meant lots of long email chains and overlapping meetings.
Naturally, he felt like he never had enough time to do it all. So he often found himself working 10 hours a day, including evenings and weekends.
The Goal: less working hours and more work-life balance
Joe was taking over the role of CTO and expected to become less and less involved in the operational side of business. There was a chance for him to work less hours by better managing his inbox and calendar. The ultimate goal was to achieve a healthier work-life balance.
And that’s why he joined Headroom.
How we gave Joe back control over his agenda and time
We introduced Joe to his primary Headroom EA and got a pulse of the time-management challenges he was facing.
Firstly, we identified his main pain point: not having enough time for deep focus work and an overflowing inbox that made it hard to keep track of what needed to be done for each project.
How did we fix the inbox dilemma?
We came up with a structured way of working that gave Joe enough time for his clients, team and personal tasks: we started by mapping out the different work-streams and departments Joe was involved in. Then we categorized all communications based on the type of projects, and tasks based on whether they were urgent, ongoing etc.
For each project or work-stream, we created a dedicated sub-folder in Joe’s inbox – we took inspiration from a law firm we worked with, where we created folders for each of their cases.
Joe’s EA keeps track of priorities for each week and make sure he has enough time to focus on them, by creating time blocks in his calendar and scheduling meetings around them.
They also keep each folder up-to-date. In this way, inbox doesn’t overflow with old emails.
On top of this, we also regularly help Joe with:
- Handling LinkedIn invites
- Taking notes during meetings
- Arranging business travels
The results: less is more
All emails are now sorted into specific sub-folders. In this way, Joe keeps a clear overview of ongoing communications for each project and nothing falls through the cracks. At the beginning of every week his primary EA discusses priority accounts for the following days.
- Joe isn’t working on weekends and evenings anymore, he’s become more of a 9-6 kind of executive, and he loves it
- He doesn’t have to deal with more than 20 emails at a time
- He’s way more focused, less stressed and stays on top of things
- He’s recently had a big jump in his career
By delegating all of this to Headroom EAs, Joe earned back 25-30 hours a month to focus on what matters most to him. That’s basically 1 day a week freed up!
We’re still working side-by-side with Joe and other C-suite at his company to improve processes and keep giving him time back. That’s because we like to be proactive and believe there are always more possibilities we can unlock together.
Our members expect the best, and so do we. But don't take our word for it.
Marc
Former VP Product & CEOHeadroom EA team works with distributed teams
More time for strategic thinking
More family time
Charlotte
Tech Investor & serial EntrepreneurOrganized Notion workspace for investments' overview
Able to start more companies
Reduced meetings by 25%
Milan
co-CEO & co-Founder OtriumGlobal premium EA support for leadership team
Cross-functional support between demand work & personal life
More creative time
What would you do with an extra day each week?
Get in touch today, and find out how we can help simplify your life and unlock possibilities.