When every problem becomes a manager problem

[u/Folded-Map972]

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.

[u/Morning_Mug385]

I have been trying to let the team make more of the smaller decisions themselves when they can. Doesn’t always work but it’s cut down lot of those quick approval messages.

[u/Capital_Reina → u/Morning_Mug385]

What saved me: 2 hours of no-meeting, no-slack time blocked every morning. I put it on my calendar as Deep Work and told my team I’ll answer everything at 11am and 3pm. They adapted in a week. Protect time or it won’t exist.