Why Mike Vrabel Demands One Mindset Not One Personality
February 4, 2026
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Being busy isn’t a badge of honor. While there is nothing wrong with being busy, you make time for what is important to you. If you want to complete an important project, make time for it. If you want to be an effective manager, you make time for one-on-ones with team members. If you want to be organized, you make time to be prepared.
As easy as that is to write, there is a good chance you feel overwhelmed or on the verge of burnout because your workload is so long. If that wasn’t bad enough, your boss keeps adding things to your to-do list, and it’s a struggle to get anything completely accomplished because someone else needs something solved.
If any of those struggles resonate, you aren’t alone. According to research from LearnLoft, “Time management and prioritization” is one of the top three challenges facing managers today. According to Forbes, 80% of managers feel overwhelmed by their workload.
If you are like most managers, you attempt to manage your time and tasks with a clock, calendar, and a long list of “to-do’s.” While this approach makes sense, it doesn’t work in reality because your life is complex. You navigate:
This sea of complexity at work and home makes a perfect schedule with a start and end time impossible. It also makes a plethora of interruptions, good or bad, almost impossible to ignore.
However, because time management and prioritization are more complicated than ever, mastering them can be a significant differentiator. As I tell all my coaching clients, Stop managing your time and task list. Start following your energy and priorities. Said differently:
Managers track time and a task list. Leaders follow their energy and priorities.
When leaders start following their energy and priorities, their time is well spent. If you want to improve your time management and prioritization skills, here is how to get started.
In 2009, Paul Graham wrote an essay, “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule.“ He highlighted the differences in work schedules, task types, and productivity patterns. You can see them below:
The one thing I would add to Graham’s ideas is that you aren’t always on a manager’s or a maker’s schedule. Many managers today are player-coaches. They have responsibilities to create and to lead. Thus, the Creative Leader is born. This means some days will look more like a manager, while others must look more like a maker.
Before you improve your time management and prioritization skills, you need to identify which work style and schedule best aligns with your day-to-day responsibilities:
A priority in the context of effective time management is a responsibility that is deemed more important than others. These are the areas of focus that, if you complete worthwhile tasks, will move you close to achieving your goals. Adam Grant wrote, “Success isn’t about getting more things done, it’s about doing more worthwhile things well.”
"Success isn't about getting more things done, it's about doing more worthwhile things well."
In the 64-Day Excellence Planner, we coach leaders and high performers to define their monthly priorities and write them down daily because they can change. An example of a manager’s priorities might be:
If you’re a leader, you are in the people business, which is why team members are priority number 1. This means your world isn’t built around automating tasks. Instead, you must prioritize substantive activities like building trust and strong relationships.
Please write down or highlight what you are about to read. Building trust and developing relationships with team members is a good use of time, energy, and attention. Relationships aren’t meant to be optimized because you don’t build strong relationships by being efficient. Stephen Covey famously said, “You can be efficient with things but not people. With people, you must be effective.”
Priorities get your time, and people are always a priority.
When I had my first kind, a mentor told me something I will never forget, “Kids spell love TIME.“ These wise words always stood out to me because your team members spell care the exact same way kids do. Priorities get your time, and people are always a priority.
One of the best ways to shift your thinking on the topic of time management is to focus on significant tasks versus just making a daily to-do list. Author Rory Vaden taught a principle that will change how you think about time management as a leader:
What are the things you can do of significance today that will create more time tomorrow?
Since you can’t create more hours in a day, it would behoove you to identify the non-negotiable tasks each day that would increase the probability that, if you completed them well, would create more time for you tomorrow. A great way to explore this concept in your job is to look at your current “To-Do“ list and ask yourself, “What on this list if I do today, would create more time in the future?“ The answer to this question might make it to your today’s non-negotiables.
Come hell or high water, completing these is more important than everything else on your list. Many of the most successful leaders write out their non-negotiables the night before or first thing in the morning so they can “eat the frog“ first thing in the morning. This means completing the hardest and most important things early before your motivation dwindles or other things come up in the day.
When you are a manager or in a leadership position, the sheer amount of times a day that you are interrupted to answer a question, solve a problem, or make a decision is mind-boggling. According to CBS, Employees are interrupted every 11 minutes. Which means managers are probably interrupted every 5 minutes. Instead of entertaining every interruption, you must get good at saying “not now“ or, even better, “no.“
Here is an example of “not now.“ “Thanks for bringing this to my attention. However, I am in the middle of something that requires my full attention. Can we set up a time tomorrow, and can you work on making progress on your own before we get together?“
Something terrific will happen 90% of the time. The person who needs your opinion will solve the problem or make significant progress on their own. While there are clearly exceptions to this approach, it’s a powerful one.
The most effective approach is one you will struggle with because most professionals default to saying “yes“ instead of defaulting to saying “no.”
For something to become a yes, the request or task must be major and aligned with your priorities. If it’s not, give it a “no“ or “not right now.“ If this seems a little extreme, or you aren’t comfortable saying no to a boss’s request, you could say, “I appreciate you asking me to complete this task, but can you help me prioritize it. I am focused on these three tasks right now, which one would you like for me to move down over this?“
Being busy isn’t a badge of honor. However, adopting a system that maximizes your time is. Larry Winget said, “It’s not that we don’t have time. It’s that we don’t have time for the things that are really important. There’s always enough time to do what’s really important, but we get caught up doing things that aren’t important.“
Lastly, give yourself some grace. There will be moments when you fail or come up short when it comes to time management and prioritization. The best part is you get to wake up tomorrow, write down your non-negotiables, and get after it.
Ready to Boost Your Productivity? The most important decision you make every day is what you focus on. Get the 64-Day Excellence Planner to help you stay focused on the most important things and achieve your goals.
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About the Author John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft, and creator of the Accelerate Leadership System. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices. John is also the author of Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success. You can follow him on Instagram @johngeades.
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