Stop Reacting, Start Leading: Take Back Control of Your Time as an NGO Leader

Have you ever ended a packed workweek wondering, “What did I actually accomplish?”

If your days are filled with meetings, emails, and constant demands—but you still feel like you’re not making meaningful progress—you’re not alone. Many leaders in the humanitarian and development sector fall into the trap of being constantly busy without being intentional, leaving them reactive, overwhelmed, and disconnected from the impact they truly want to create.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to take back control of your time and lead with greater intention, including:

• A simple time awareness exercise that reveals where your hours are really going
• Practical ways to shift from reactive busyness to intentional, high-impact work
• A mindset and decision-making approach that helps you reclaim control of your time and priorities

Press play now to learn how to free up hours each week and start using your time in a way that actually drives meaningful impact.

Watch on YouTube Here

Ready to stop just managing your time—and start leading it?

The Time Diary builds awareness.

But without clarity on what truly matters, you’ll stay busy… just more aware of it.

That’s why the next step is defining your Leadership Vision-so you can decide what to focus on, delegate, and let go. 

Listen to this episode to find out more: From Busy to Impactful.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Stop Reacting, Start Leading: Take Back Control of Your Time as an NGO Leader

Torrey: [00:00:00] Have you ever worked nonstop all week and still felt like you've gotten nothing meaningful done? Your calendar was full, your to-do list keeps growing, and at the end of the week, your left wondering, what did I actually accomplish? This is one of the most common challenges that I see leaders in the humanitarian and development sector face.

And over time, it's not just frustrating, it drains your motivation, your confidence, and the sense of impact. But what I see is that when we are constantly busy, but not intentional, we stay stuck reacting instead of leading. So here's the shift that I want you to make. The problem that we focus on is not, how do I do more?

The problem is, how do I use my time better? And that's what we're gonna talk about [00:01:00] today.

My name is Torrey and I'm the host of the "Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader" podcast, and I've helped hundreds of NGO leaders increase their productivity, not by working longer hours, but by changing how you use your time.

In fact, the approach I'm gonna share with you today has helped leaders free up to four or more hours per week. So if you're going to stop falling behind and start feeling control of your time, let's get started. So the first step to becoming more intentional with your time is awareness. We need to know how we are actually using it, become aware, and I like to compare to this something outside of our everyday work. Imagine that you go to a nutritionist or a dietician because you want to improve your eating habits, and one of the first things that they'll ask you to do is to keep a food diary. That is, you write down everything that you [00:02:00] eat throughout the day, because often you're not fully aware of your habits.

Maybe you grab a snack at a colleague's desk or you take a quick bite of something and you're not even aware of with, not even thinking about it. But the moment that you start to write these things down, you start to be able to notice patterns, and that awareness is when you can take control and decide how to change. And the same applies to how you use your time. So here's the exercise I want you to try. It's called a Time Diary, and this is what I do with leaders who take my course, Becoming the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader. One of the first things we do is the Time Diary because I want them to take control of their time before they can start becoming better leaders.

So, I want you to pick a typical day in your week, not a day where you have like an extraordinary meeting, or you're in a conference, a [00:03:00] typical day. And set a timer for every hour. And when that timer goes off, simply write down how you spent the last hour. That's it. You don't have to go into a lot of detail, just high level activities that you accomplish that hour.

But at the end of the day, review it and then ask yourself these questions. Number one, what surprised me about how I used my time today? Number two, where am I spending time that isn't actually contributing to the impact that I want? And number three, how can I make a small shift, starting even today, so that I can use my time better starting tomorrow?

Because here's what most leaders discover when they do this. It's not that you don't have enough time, it's that your time is being used in ways that don't align with what actually matters. And [00:04:00] if we take how you use your time and amplify it every day over a year, it's going to lead you in a certain direction.

So is it going to lead you in the direction of lots of emails answered or more impact to the community level or with your team? It's up to you. And so this is where the real shift starts, not through drastic changes, but through these small intentional ones. There's always a better way we can use our time, delegating a meeting that you don't need to attend, for example. Reducing time spent in email, creating a space for more strategic thinking. These small shifts might seem insignificant, but over time they compound into hours that are gained back every week.

Another benefit to this exercise that most people don't expect, you start to see that you're actually getting more done than you thought. And especially as you [00:05:00] make these small changes over time, and you're able to do this exercise maybe once a week or once a month even, and see how your time is shifting more and more toward those impactful tasks that you want to get done.

And that builds a sense of progress and control, which is something that many leaders feel that they've lost. So now, if you wanna take this one step further, here's a simple addition. Before each hour begins, ask yourself, what would make this next hour even more impactful? How can I use this next hour to make an even greater impact than I am now?

This simple, intentional shift allows you to start planning more intentionally and then at the end of the hour reflect, did I actually use it that way? And if not, what got in the way? [00:06:00] What is it something urgent? Was it a distraction? Was it overcoming or overestimating what you could do? These steps shift you for becoming reactive with your time to becoming more proactive and more intentional.

But there's one more important piece that we haven't talked about yet, because awareness alone isn't enough. If you're not clear on what actually matters, and that is, what is important, then you're not gonna know how to prioritize your time. A time diary is not gonna be able to help you. You'll just become more aware of all the things you have to do.

So the real question is, how do you decide what is worth your time? And that comes back to having a clear vision of the leader you want to be and the impact you want to make. Because without that clarity, it's like being in the middle of an ocean. and guessing which direction to go to shore. But when you have a [00:07:00] leadership vision, it becomes your compass.

It helps you decide what to focus on, what to delegate, and what to let go of. So here's what I want you to do. Try the Time Diary for just one day this week. Not perfectly, but just be honest with yourself and notice what shifts. And then if you wanna take this a step further and get clear on what your time should actually be spent on to make the impact you want within a year or three years from now, go listen to the episode in the show notes because that's where you move from managing your time to leading with intention. Alright, until next time, keep evolving. Bye for now.