Latest / Executive Careers with Fexingo: VP, C-Suite, and Senior Leadership Career Strategy / How Senior Leaders Audit Their Time Before Accepting a New Role
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this moment in every executive job search that I think is under-discussed. You've got the offer letter, the title is right, the comp is right, the team seems great. And then you get this tiny voice in your head asking: what is my week actually going to look like? Most leaders I've talked to never answer that question before they sign. Luna: And some of them learn the hard way. I was talking to a tech CEO who took a role without mapping his time, and six months in he realized he was spending forty hours a month just on board prep alone. That's a full week every month. Lucas: That's exactly the kind of number that should scare you. Forty hours of board prep a month — that's not in any job description, but it's real. And it's the reason I want to talk about what I call the executive time audit. It's a simple exercise you run before you accept a role, and it can save you from a really expensive mistake. Luna: So what does the time audit actually look like in practice? I'm guessing it's more than just adding up the obvious meetings. Lucas: Right, it's about finding the hidden hours. I had a client — let's call her Sarah — who was considering a chief operating officer role at a global manufacturing firm. She was thrilled about the scope. But before she said yes, I had her build a week-by-week calendar for the first ninety days, based on everything she knew about the role, the company, and the board. Luna: And what did that calendar reveal? Lucas: It revealed that her 'reasonable' fifty-hour week was actually closer to sixty-five, once you added in the international calls at six a.m., the quarterly board cycle that ramps up for two weeks each quarter, and the informal 'shadow time' — the hallway conversations, the late-night emails, the relationship maintenance that never shows up on a calendar invite. Luna: So the audit forces you to make your assumptions explicit. Because once you see sixty-five hours written down, you have to decide if that's a life you actually want. Lucas: Exactly. And that's step one: list the hard commitments you know about. Board meetings, recurring staff meetings, investor updates, quarterly planning. Step two is estimating the hourly load for each. Step three is pressure-testing those estimates with people who already do the job or work closely with it. And step four — this is the one most people skip — is building in slack for the unexpected. Luna: Slack for the unexpected. That's interesting. Because if you don't leave room for the crisis of the week, you're already behind before you start. Lucas: Precisely. Sarah's audit showed that the role demanded about fifty-five hours of predictable work, but there was no buffer for the kind of firefighting that comes with a global operations role. So she went back to the board and negotiated two things: a chief of staff to absorb some of the coordination work, and a commitment to protect one day a week for strategic thinking. She got both, because she had the data to make the case. Luna: That's a great outcome. But what about the leader who doesn't have that leverage, or who's desperate for the role? How do they use the time audit without scaring off the employer? Lucas: That's a fair concern, and it's why the audit is primarily a private exercise for you, not a negotiation tool you have to share. The first thing you do is decide for yourself whether the role is livable. If it is, great. If it needs adjustment, you can raise it in the right way — not as a demand, but as a question: 'I want to make sure I'm set up to succeed. Can we talk about how we're resourcing the CEO's office?' That's a legitimate business conversation. Luna: So the audit gives you clarity first, and then you can choose whether to use it as a lever. But what about the hidden costs that aren't just time? Like the toll on your family or your health? Lucas: That's where the audit gets really personal. Once you have the hour count, you have to overlay it on your actual life. Sarah had two school-age kids and a partner with a demanding career. When she saw that the role meant she'd miss dinner four nights a week and travel two weeks a month, she had to make a real choice. She decided the role was worth it, but she went in with her eyes open — and she put specific strategies in place to protect the time she did have at home. Luna: Like what? Lucas: She negotiated a no-meeting window from six to eight p.m. — the dinner and bedtime window — and she set a hard rule about not checking email after nine. She told her team that if something truly urgent came up, they'd call, but otherwise it could wait until morning. And she found that the quality of her evening time went way up, even if the quantity wasn't what she'd have in a less demanding role. Luna: That's a powerful example. But I want to push back a little. Isn't there a risk that you can audit your way into analysis paralysis? At some point you have to just make the leap. Lucas: Sure, and the audit isn't meant to be an indefinite process. You spend maybe two or three hours on it, total. You talk to two or three people who've done the role or something similar. You write down the numbers. And then you make a decision. The point is to avoid the mistake of accepting a role on vibes alone, only to discover three months in that the job is fundamentally incompatible with the life you want to live. Luna: Right. And I think there's a real difference between a reasonable leap of faith and a blind leap. The audit gives you the facts to make the faith more reasonable. Lucas: Exactly. And I should say, this isn't just for external moves. The same exercise is incredibly useful if you're being promoted internally, or if your current role is being expanded. I've seen leaders use a version of this when their scope grows — they audit the new responsibilities against their current capacity, and they often discover they need to delegate or hire before they can take on the new work. Luna: That's a good point. And speaking of delegation — we did an episode on delegating for impact a while back, and I think the time audit is a perfect complement to that. Lucas: It really is. The audit tells you where the hours are going, and delegation is the tool you use to move them around. I remember a client who was promoted to a group VP role and did a time audit of her first month in the job. She found she was spending twenty hours a week in meetings that she didn't need to be in — they were informational, not decision-making. So she delegated her attendance to her direct reports, with a rule that they'd only pull her in if a decision needed her judgment. She got back a day and a half every week. Luna: That's a fantastic ROI on a three-hour exercise. And it's a concrete tool that any listener can use, regardless of where they are in their career. Lucas: Absolutely. And before we go deeper on how to run the audit step by step, I want to take a quick moment to mention something that's genuinely important to us. Luna: Yeah, and I think this connects to what we're talking about — because if you've gotten value from these episodes, if they've helped you think through a career move or a decision, that's exactly the kind of impact we hope for. Lucas: So this show is ad-free, and it stays that way because of listeners who chip in a couple of dollars a month at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It genuinely makes a difference — it covers the hosting costs, the editing, the research that goes into every episode. Luna: And it means we can keep making these deep dives, like today's time audit, without any sponsors dictating the content. So if you've found value, that's a great way to say thanks. Lucas: And now back to that step-by-step. So let's break it down. Step one: you list every recurring commitment you can anticipate. That includes the obvious ones, like staff meetings and one-on-ones, but also the ones that are easy to forget — quarterly board cycles, annual planning, investor relations if you're at a public company, and industry events you're expected to attend. Luna: And you're putting those on a weekly calendar, not just a list, right? Because the week is where the pressure actually shows up. Lucas: Exactly. Use a spreadsheet or a paper calendar, and block out the time for each commitment. You'll quickly see which weeks are already at forty hours before you've added a single strategic initiative. And that's the 'aha' moment that most leaders never get before they sign. Luna: So step one is the list, step two is the estimates. What about the pressure-testing step — who do you talk to, and what do you ask? Lucas: You want to talk to people who've actually done the job, or who work in the immediate orbit. A trusted peer in a similar role, or even someone who left the company recently. And you ask very specific questions: 'How many hours a week do you actually work?' 'How much travel is really expected?' 'How often do you have to be available on weekends?' You're not looking for a general sense — you want numbers. Luna: And I'd add: ask them about the 'invisible' work — the political navigation, the stakeholder management, the things that aren't on the calendar but take energy. Because those are the hours that drain you without showing up in a time log. Lucas: That's a great addition, and it's why the audit isn't just about time — it's about energy. A role can be forty-five hours a week but have a really high emotional load, and that can be more exhausting than a sixty-hour week with lower stakes. So in step three, after you've talked to people, you take your estimates and you adjust them with that emotional load in mind. Luna: And then step four, the slack. How much buffer do you build in? Lucas: I recommend at least ten percent on top of your total estimated hours, but more if the role involves crisis management or rapid change. Sarah's original audit came in at fifty-five hours of predictable work; with ten percent slack, she was looking at sixty-one. And that number — sixty-one, not fifty-five — is what she used to make her decision. It's also the number she used to decide what to ask for in her negotiation. Luna: So the slack isn't just a buffer for your wellbeing — it's a planning tool. It forces you to confront the true cost of the job. Lucas: And it forces you to think about what you're willing to trade. Because let's be honest, every high-level role costs you something — time with family, hobbies, sleep, health. The audit doesn't make those costs disappear, it just makes them visible. And visibility is the first step to making a deliberate choice. Luna: I love that framing. 'Every role costs something' — it's so easy to focus on the upside, the title and the comp, and forget that you're trading a piece of your life for it. Lucas: And the audit is how you decide if that trade is worth it. I had another client — a VP of marketing — who did the audit and realized that the dream role she was considering would mean she'd miss her daughter's soccer games two nights a week. She decided to walk away, and six months later she found a role that was just as good but with a more predictable schedule. She told me she'd never have made that decision without the audit. Luna: That's a powerful story. And it shows that the audit isn't just about saying no — sometimes it helps you say yes with confidence, because you know what you're signing up for. Lucas: Exactly. Sarah said yes to her role, and it's gone well — partly because she went in knowing she'd need to protect her evenings and her strategic thinking time. She had a plan from day one, and that made all the difference. Luna: So for anyone listening who's in the middle of a job search or considering a promotion, the time audit seems like a really practical next step. Is there a resource you'd point them to? Lucas: There are some good templates online, but honestly, a blank calendar and a notebook are enough. The key is to be honest with yourself and to talk to people who know the role. If you do that, you'll have a much better sense of whether this opportunity is truly a good fit — not just on paper, but in the reality of your week. Luna: And that's the kind of clarity that makes the difference between a move that looks good and a move that actually is good. Lucas: So here's the question I'll leave you with: before you accept your next role, do you know what your average Tuesday is going to look like? If you don't, the time audit is a great place to start.