Davide Savenije is the editor-in-chief at Industry Dive and the president of ASBPE’s board of directors. “Ask ASBPE” is an advice column where Davide — and a rotating cast of subject matter experts — answer the most pressing questions from the B2B publishing community. You can ask ASBPE your question through our contact form.
“How do you manage your time?”
By far, this is one of the most frequently asked questions I get from fellow managers, editors, reporters, and anyone else who works in a fast-paced, deadline-driven editorial environment.
We consistently face pressure to produce more and better, and do it with seemingly less time and fewer resources. It’s a constant race to produce stories, talk to sources, read your competitors, meet with your team and make time for bigger-picture projects and ideas.
I learned a long time ago that the dirty little secret is that no one has all the answers. But from talking to a lot of my friends and close colleagues in B2B media, I gathered some of my favorite tried-and-true tips and best practices that we can all learn from.
Here’s how 10 top B2B media professionals approach managing their time effectively:
1. Stay Disciplined
Prioritize and focus only on what is essential. Our audience also finds itself doing more with less, including having less time. By focusing only on the essential, we help manage our own time and in the process we help save our readers time, too.
– Paul Albergo, former executive editor at Bloomberg Industry Group, adjunct associate professor at American University, adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University, and member of ASBPE board of directors
2. Don’t let emails become a distraction
I tend to check my emails first thing in the morning. I answer the important/urgent ones, and then I go about my workday taking care of my own needs and deadlines. It can be quite tempting to continually check your email messages, but in doing so, you slow down your productivity on your actual work.
When you need absolute focus — such as when writing an article — turn off your notifications and/or close any applications from which you receive notifications such as your email and messaging apps. You will finish your writing assignment much quicker without those annoying notification pop-ups.
– Cory Sekine-Pettite, ASBPE immediate past president and editor at New South Publishing
3. You can’t manage what you can’t measure
As an independent journalist/freelance writer/business owner, my best advice is to track your hours obsessively to understand acutely how you’re spending your time and where you can save time by outsourcing or automating. Personally, I use Toggl but there are other time tracking apps. For example, when I realized that transcribing interviews became an obvious time-suck (and something I didn’t enjoy doing myself), I started outsourcing it and ultimately using an AI tool (Rev) to get transcripts within 5 minutes so I can focus on writing. (That service, in itself, is a great time-saver!)
Tracking my time by project and task also helps me set project rates and estimates because I’ve collected more than a decade of data about how long an article will take to produce, depending how many sources I interview, how many words I have to submit, and other factors I track. Knowing approximately how long every task and deadline on my weekly to-do list will take has helped me plan my schedule more precisely and use my time more efficiently.
– Brooke Bilyj, ASBPE vice president, freelance writer, owner and chief content officer of Bantamedia
4. Ignore people (responsibly)
Cultivate the ability to ignore people (responsibly). Seriously. As a project and event manager, the single most-important thing I’ve learned is that there are times I need to focus on an important task for a prolonged period of time. If I try to help everyone at the same time, I will never finish my own work. Ignore emails, messages, your phone — ignore everything until that important task is finished. You CAN get back to people later, and they’ll be okay.
– Jessi McCarthy-Hills, executive director of ASBPE and managing owner of McCarthy Hills LLC
5. Nothing beats the old-fashioned to-do list
I use a Moleskine notebook for my master to-do list, and every evening before I leave the office, I transfer the 3-4 most important items for the following day from my master list to a Post-It to tackle the following day. Analog = always accessible, and the joy of scribbling out completed items is unparalleled.
– Stephanie Ricca, editorial director at Hotel News Now and member of ASBPE board of directors
6. Rank your priorities
With the pile-on of projects that come in, one of my time-savers is tagging all with a priority rating along with a checklist of what’s needed to complete the project. The priority rating goes from “Immediate, High, Tepid to Whenever” ranked with a checklist of the status on having all relevant materials to start. If any project is missing materials, I state a date that it’s needed to meet the rating of either High or Immediate. Later dates, I slot the projects Tepid and if things are not submitted in a timely fashion, it falls to Whenever.
This helps my sanity and places a project’s pace on whoever is providing all necessary information for the project to start. It also helps (most times) to reinforce the principle that a creative project isn’t something we can just whip up out of thin air.
– Andrew Bass, art and production manager at Risk and Insurance Management Society and member of ASBPE board of directors
7. Plan the week ahead
Each week, I make a list of all known interviews and meetings and then print it out and tape it to the wall near my desk. Throughout the week, I take it down and add to it.
– Craig Johnson, senior editorial director at Staffing Industry Analysts and ASBPE secretary
8. You may be busy but we all make time for our priorities
Time is an inherently finite resource. You can’t get more of it. Working longer hours typically results in burnout and less productivity over time. It’s simply not sustainable or healthy. The most important thing, in my mind, is to be incredibly, brutally disciplined about what should be a priority — and cut everything else out. What will make the biggest impact? What can I only uniquely do? It’s essential to step back from our busy schedules and make sure that we’re not just busy — we’re making time for the biggest priorities that will move the needle the most. Too busy to do something? It must just not be your priority.
– Davide Savenije, editor-in-chief at Industry Dive and ASBPE president
9. Steward time as your most precious resource
Before they can manage time appropriately, journalists must first ensure managers have set reasonable timelines. Otherwise, professionals risk burning out while chasing a moving target.
It’s also important to note that experience really matters in niche journalism. Your speed and abilities start to compound once you’ve mastered the basics: You know who to call, you know where to find information and, most importantly, you develop an understanding of your industry’s natural cadences.
Then, time management boils down to stewarding time as you would your most precious resource — maybe second-most precious, since your sources still come first.
Business journalists need to lay out the day’s hours across a tight written budget of sorts, allocating time to each task using the most accurate estimation possible. But, of course, they must be prepared to turn to plan B if (when?) all their carefully laid plans are rendered useless by breaking news.
Even if just mentally, craft a plan for how you want your day, week and month to play out. Then stick to that plan with the same doggedness you use to unearth information others want to keep hidden.
– Roberto Torres, Editor at CIO Dive
10. Work harder, not smarter*
I don’t have any time management skills. I’m just a workaholic.
– Jonathan Maze, Editor In Chief at Informa Connect Foodservice and member of ASBPE board of directors
*Editor’s note: Let it be known that Jonathan was being sarcastic. ASBPE does not actually recommend this approach. We recommend investing in time management skills. We hope Jonathan takes us up on our advice. Don’t be like Jonathan.