Founders rarely notice how much time gets absorbed by reactive work. Emails, Slack messages, quick favors, and status checks create a day that feels full but not productive. A short, focused time audit can reveal where hours are leaking away and which responsibilities need to be delegated or redesigned. The goal is not to micromanage your calendar forever; it is to get a clear picture for one week and reset how you spend time.

Step one: track everything for five workdays. Use a simple spreadsheet or a time-tracking app. Log activities in 30-minute blocks with categories like sales, product, operations, hiring, admin, and downtime. Include context: was the work proactive (chosen) or reactive (responding)? Do not try to optimize during the week; just observe.

Step two: analyze. Add up hours per category and tag them as CEO work (strategy, relationships, key hires, fundraising), operator work (project management, approvals), and admin (scheduling, expenses). Most founders find a surprising amount of time in admin and reactive tasks. Identify high-value work that is getting too little attention and low-value work that dominates the week.

Step three: redesign. Choose three changes for the next month: delegate one recurring task, timebox one deep-work block daily, and introduce one boundary (e.g., no internal meetings before 10 a.m., batch email twice a day). Assign owners for tasks you delegate and provide SOPs so handoffs stick. Use your calendar to protect focus blocks and to cluster meetings.

Step four: create a light maintenance habit. Once a quarter, repeat a two-day mini audit to catch drift. If reactive work is creeping back, adjust your boundaries or add support. Track one or two metrics: hours in CEO work and hours in admin. Celebrate progress, not perfection.

The payoff is tangible: reclaiming ten hours a week can be the difference between shipping a new offer and staying stuck in firefighting. A time audit is a low-effort diagnostic that surfaces hidden bottlenecks in how the CEO spends attention—the scarcest resource in a growing business.