[ska]

I’ve watched many people in these roles, and had them at various times.

One of my takeaways was this. Everybody has a system, but it’s not that important what the system is. What is telling is what happens in a “challenging situation”. Is your system what you rely on to get you through it, or is it what you abandon when the chips are down - only to pick up again when things cool down? In my experience, the people in the former category perform much better, with fewer surprises. If that isn’t you, ask why.

I’ve seen people do this well using everything from a fully manual system (engineering notebook/journal) to total commitment to something like omnifocus to a sort of personal wiki to one based on emacs .org mode. I think the key is to find (and customize) a system that is comfortable for you and you trust - and make it very easy to use. Simpler is probably better.

Another thing to note, the first time you have an EA you’ll have to adjust your patterns to make both of your time more effective.

One last thing - how effective do you feel you are at delegating? The bigger the group under you, the more you have to let go of details to keep your focus where it matters. Communication trumps almost everything else.