Hey :) 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it actually takes to do good work over a long period of time.

Not intense bursts.
Not heroic sprints.
But turning up year after year and still liking the work you do.

This short series is probably most relevant for people who have a high degree of leverage over their time. Owners. Knowledge workers. People whose output isn’t measured in hours clocked, but in judgment, decisions, and direction.

I don’t have a neat framework for this (yet). Over this series of short articles I'll be thinking out loud and joining some dots from my own career.

One thing I’ve become very clear on is this:

As your career progresses, it matters less how much time you spend working and more what you spend time working on.

Early in your career, time and effort are often the currency. Later on, leverage becomes the currency.

I can see this clearly if I look back far enough.

Early on in my management career (my early 20's), I remember being on the phone to someone while my manager stood behind me telling me what to say. That image sticks with me. It’s a good metaphor for how little leverage I had at that point. Micro management. Shift work. Fixed hours. Little autonomy. Little say.

A few years later, that changed dramatically — not because someone handed me more control, but because I created it.

I helped design a role that didn’t exist before. I wrote the job description. I defined what was in scope and what wasn’t. That role came with responsibility for other managers and around 100 staff.

Looking back, I don’t think I could have articulated it at the time, but what I was really doing was increasing my leverage over my time. Moving from doing to directing. From reacting to shaping.

That was about twenty years ago, and I’ve been pursuing that same thing ever since — often without calling it that.

There's something interesting and important here about creating your own role within a larger organisation. 

Another example.

In 2019, I joined an American agency. On paper, I’d gone from entrepreneur to employee. But mentally, I never really adopted an “employee mindset”.

Before I even joined, I knew I’d have to be deliberate about my calendar. UK time plus US time can easily turn into all-day work if you let it.

At one point early on, I was asked to join a cross-department meeting at 6pm UK time. I’d already blocked out the hour between 5.30 and 6.30 for dinner and bedtime. I had a young family and I’d made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t miss that window.

I was told, “Everyone else is joining — can’t you make an exception?”

I didn’t.

Not because I was being difficult, but because I’ve learned that the first exception creates the future expectation. Once you open that door, it’s very hard to close again.

That boundary wasn’t about stubbornness. It was about being able to turn up healthy and present over a five- or ten-year period. Nobody else can manage that for you.

This is something I believe very strongly now:

If you want to do good work over a long period of time, you have to take responsibility for how your time is used.

Not in a controlling way. In an intentional way.

If you’re a knowledge worker or an owner, you almost certainly have more leverage over your time than you think. But you only feel it once you start acting like it’s yours to manage.

This isn’t about working less for the sake of it. It’s about recognising that your energy, attention, and judgment are finite — and valuable.

That’s the starting point.

This feels like the right place to pause.

In the next post, I want to share my thinking about the quality of the work itself — how moving closer to strategy, decisions, and the future changes both the value of your work and how you experience it.

For now, this is just an observation from my own career:

Doing your best work for a long time starts with increasing — and protecting — your leverage over your time.

🗣️ 👀

Chris.