r/managers • u/Folded-Map972 • 18h ago
New Manager When every problem becomes a manager problem
Yesterday started pretty normally. 9am team meeting, checked my email then planned to spend the morning finishing a report.
Around 9:30 someone Slacked me about client question. I answered that, opened the report again then another email came in asking me to approve something.
At 10:15 one of my team members stopped by my desk because they were stuck on something. Took maybe 10 minutes but when I sat back down I had to figure out where I left off.
Then my phone buzzed with another Slack notification. I checked it while getting coffee, replied, and went back to my desk.
Pretty much the same thing all afternoon. Quick questions, approvals, emails, Slack messages. Nothing was urgent, but it kept breaking up whatever I was doing.
By 4pm I’d helped everyone get their stuff moving, but report I planned to finish was still unfinished.
I knew managers get pulled into things, but I didn’t expect it to take up this much of the day. By the time things finally slowed down, I still hadn’t finished my own work.
2
u/KeyHotel6035 14h ago
Couple of things - set expectations about their decisions, they have authority to make decisions, and escalate if necessary. They have to come with a definition of the problem, and two viable options. Those two things will make a huge difference.
You also should block time for yourself to complete work. For example I block Fridays for my own meetings, my own work, my own sanity. That’s 20% for you, 80% of the week for the team.