Busy ≠ Productive: One Ritual to Transform Your Week

🗣️ Hey You…Yeah You!!! You don’t get to lead high-stakes projects, oversee cross-functional teams, or drive technical strategy without being capable and smart. Yet, even the most talented Technical Leaders fall into a trap that quietly erodes their effectiveness: operating without a personal productivity system. You jump from meeting to meeting, answer MS Teams pings in real-time, and keep dozens of to-dos swirling in your head. It doesn’t look like a problem at first. However, without a structured way to manage your time, your priorities, and your energy, you will end up playing defense all week long — reacting, rushing, and re-prioritizing on the fly. Everything becomes a five-alarm fire and you Ma’am/Sir become its top firefighter.

The truth is, being busy isn’t the same as being productive, and when you don’t take time to design your week with intention, your leadership impact, morale, and performance suffers. For Mistake #4 of the Top 5 Productivity Mistakes Technical Leaders Make, let's dig into why this mistake is so common, and how a simple Weekly Planning Ritual can put you back in control.

Meet Clifford*, a Staff Engineer at a rapidly scaling startup, who was well-respected and known for solving complex problems. However, despite his technical brilliance, Clifford struggled to move forward on strategic initiatives. His calendar was a blur of back-to-back meetings, and his MS Teams was a battlefield of urgent-but-not-important requests —- he literally would hear the “doo-doo dododo doo-doo” in his sleep. When his Manager asked about progress on a cross-functional team initiative that had been stalled for weeks, Clifford thought to himself, “I haven’t had a minute to breathe, let alone think.”

The real issue? Clifford had no personal productivity system. He relied on memory, managed tasks in scattered places, and scheduled meetings reactively. There was no protected time for deep work, no structured prioritization process, and no buffer zones to absorb unexpected fires. After working with me during several 1:1 Strategy Sessions, I asked Clifford to begin a Weekly Planning Ritual every Friday afternoon. During this time, he was to:

1. Block deep work time on his calendar throughout the week, with the do not disturb on.

2. Review his top 3 business-aligned priorities and update his Rolling Action Item List (RAIL) with statuses. 

3. Assign specific deadlines to actions that support completion and put them on his calendar. 

4. Leave some space for the inevitable curveballs. 

   
   

Within a few weeks, Clifford was delivering on key initiatives — without working nights and weekends. His stress dropped, and his strategic influence grew. Remember, Leaders must design their weeks with intention if they want to be successful without burnout.

Technical Leaders often resist structure, fearing it will box in their creativity or slow down their perceived momentum. We continuously tell ourselves that we don’t have time and that the fire is too big to contain. However, the opposite is true: the right productivity system gives you freedom. When you build rituals that support clarity, energy, and intentional focus, you stop letting urgency hijack your attention. You start leading from a place of purpose instead of pressure. Most importantly, you create space for the kind of work that actually moves the business forward. Productivity rituals build consistency in high performance. If you're still relying on memory and sticky notes, juggling priorities in real-time, or feeling like you're always behind and stressed, it’s time to implement a system that serves you. Start with a Weekly Planning Ritual — and watch how quickly your impact compounds. Transform Your Week! 🎯

⏳ Ready to trade reactivity for results? Book a 1:1 Strategy Session with Dr. Cristi to explore how a customized productivity system can elevate your leadership impact. Whether you’re leading a team, driving innovation, or simply want to work smarter and not harder, you deserve a system that works with you, not against you. Let’s design it—together.

Looking forward to working with you to #EngineerBetterLeaders! ✨

*Actual client whose name has been changed