At the recent SEMMA (South East Melbourne Manufacturers Alliance) forum events, one message came through loud and clear: we need to dramatically reduce the time it takes to get things done in Victoria and across Australia.
From regulatory approvals and investment decisions to getting projects moving, delays are costing businesses time, money and opportunities.
The Australian Institute of Company Directors' Director Sentiment Index has consistently identified productivity as a major economic concern for Australian business leaders, alongside global uncertainty. Red tape, regulatory burden and slow decision-making are among the challenges directors highlight. And the Productivity Commission has tracked years of weak productivity growth, with too many businesses spending valuable time navigating complexity rather than creating value.
But here's the question I've been thinking about: what if part of our productivity problem isn't just how long things take, but the assumptions we make about how long they should take?
The answer isn't asking people to work harder. It's leaders questioning why work takes as long as it does, what really needs to be done, and how much more becomes possible when we change our relationship with time.
Earlier this year, I took part in a Mastermind program with Elizabeth Ralph, known as the Spiritual Investor. One of the core principles she taught us was to rethink time and how we work with it.
Elizabeth's view is that time is a tool, not a master.
Of course, we need time to structure our days: to get to the gym, join a Zoom meeting or pick up the kids. But something changes when we become so attached to the clock that we start seeing ourselves as victims of it.
We say things like:
Think about your day so far. How many times have you already said one of these, to someone else or to yourself?
When we automatically assume we don't have time, we stop looking for possibilities. We accept our workload, processes and commitments as fixed, and try to squeeze more into the same day rather than questioning what needs to change.
Now think of a time you were completely absorbed in something: a fascinating conversation, a project you loved, a challenging problem. You looked at the clock and hours had passed without you noticing.
The clock hadn't changed. Your experience of time had.
Ralph has spoken about building a multimillion-dollar business while going a decade without experiencing overwhelm. Whether or not you adopt her whole philosophy, the underlying question is worth asking:
What becomes possible when we stop treating time as something that controls us and start using it more intentionally?
You don't have to subscribe to Elizabeth Ralph's philosophy to see the practical value of challenging assumptions about time.
Consider Elon Musk. Whatever your views on him, his approach to project delivery shows what happens when leaders refuse to accept conventional timelines without questioning them.
Musk is known for setting dramatically shorter deadlines than traditional estimates. If a team says something will take three years, his instinct is to ask why it can't be done in six months.
The point isn't that every three-year project can or should be finished in six months. It's that the original estimate deserves to be challenged. Why does it take that long? Which constraints are truly unavoidable? And which come from inherited processes, unnecessary requirements or assumptions nobody has questioned?
South Australia's Hornsdale Power Reserve is a good example.
After the state's 2016 blackout, Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes publicly challenged Musk on Twitter to help stabilise South Australia's electricity grid with Tesla batteries. Musk responded with a bold commitment: Tesla would deliver the battery system within 100 days of the contract being signed, or it would be free.
The project was switched on in December 2017, within the promised timeframe.
Of course, aggressive deadlines don't automatically produce better outcomes. Projects miss their targets, and extreme pressure can create serious costs for people, quality and safety. The lesson isn't to impose unrealistic deadlines and expect miracles. It's to stop assuming that the time something has always taken is the time it must take.
In Walter Isaacson's biography Elon Musk, Musk describes a five-step approach to designing and building systems. The order matters, because it makes leaders question the work before trying to make it faster.
I particularly like the order of these steps.
How often do we try to make a process faster without first asking whether it needs to exist? And how often do we bring in new technology to automate something that shouldn't be happening in the first place?
This is where I see the connection to Australia's productivity challenge. We can spend years optimising how we do things, when the bigger opportunity may be to rethink what we do.
I can almost hear your objection.
"That's all very well for Elizabeth Ralph or Elon Musk, but I can't work like that. I have a team, clients, compliance requirements and commitments I can't simply ignore."
I hear you. Most organisations still run on established systems, expectations and deadlines. And not every constraint is optional, particularly when safety, regulation and quality are involved.
But what if this kind of thinking is exactly what we need to start tackling our productivity challenges? We can't change every external constraint. We can change how we respond to them, how we structure our work and what we expect of ourselves and our teams.
Over the last four months, I've been experimenting with how I use time. I certainly haven't mastered it, but I've had days where I achieved more than I thought possible, without the usual pressure of the clock.
What I've noticed is that it isn't simply about more discipline or working faster. It's about being more conscious of the choices I'm making.
Here are three practices I've been experimenting with that other leaders can put into action.
I'm a big fan of Whitney Johnson's book, Build an A Team. One technique she explores to reignite people's performance is introducing constraints. Rather than giving people unlimited time, constraints encourage them to think differently, focus on what matters and find new ways to get results.
I've been experimenting with this myself. Instead of simply working through my to-do list, I set a deadline and challenge myself to finish the work within it. Not because everything must be rushed, but because a defined timeframe forces me to decide what matters, what can be simplified and what doesn't need to happen at all.
Two questions worth asking yourself:
What would I do differently if I had to achieve my annual targets in nine months instead of twelve? Would you approach clients differently? Change your priorities? Delegate more? Stop doing things that no longer contribute to your objectives?
If I were going away for three months, what would need to change so my business could run without me? This one is particularly revealing for business owners and senior leaders. It shows how much of the work depends on you personally, where you've become a bottleneck, and where others could take on more responsibility.
Try this: Choose one important project or recurring task this week. Give yourself a shorter timeframe than usual and ask what you'd need to eliminate, change or delegate to achieve it. Protect the quality and safety requirements that truly matter.
One of the biggest opportunities for leaders today isn't getting faster at tasks. It's no longer doing so many of them personally.
As I explored in my article, The Biggest Opportunity in AI Isn't Automation. It's Human Potential:
The biggest opportunity in AI isn't that organisations can do the same work with fewer people. It's that capable people can create exponentially more value than ever before.
I see this play out in my coaching. Recently, an executive I was working with proudly told me they had completed 70% of the tasks they'd committed to on a Monday morning.
That was a great achievement. But it wasn't actually the point of the exercise.
The real objective was to identify which of those tasks could be automated, delegated or removed altogether. Getting through your to-do list faster is only part of the opportunity. The bigger one is to stop filling your time with work that someone or something else could do.
It always amazes me how many senior leaders have capable people around them who are eager to contribute, yet still carry the bulk of the work themselves. That isn't just a productivity issue. It's a leadership issue. When you hold on to too much, you become the bottleneck, your team has fewer opportunities to grow, and you have less time for the strategic work only you can do.
Delegation requires trust. It means being clear about the outcome, giving people the authority to achieve it, and resisting the urge to take the work back at the first sign of difficulty.
Try this: Look at your next to-do list and identify three tasks you could automate, delegate or eliminate. Don't just challenge yourself to finish them faster. Challenge yourself to stop being the person who has to do them.
This is probably the hardest practice, because it means becoming conscious of how you think and talk about time.
Start by noticing how often you say, "I don't have time."
I'm not suggesting you have unlimited time. But there's a difference between recognising a real constraint and automatically assuming something is impossible because you feel short of time.
When you catch yourself saying it, ask:
These questions shift you from feeling trapped by your circumstances to taking responsibility for the choices available to you.
One of the things I do each morning is meditate. It creates space before the day begins, rather than having me react straight away to everything that demands my attention. It also helps me notice whether I'm working from a place of pressure or a place of clarity. When I'm rushing, I get so focused on getting through the day that I lose sight of whether I'm doing the right things at all.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is slow down, think differently and decide not to do something.
Try this: For one week, notice every time you say or think, "I don't have time." Pause and ask what's really getting in the way. You may find the answer isn't always the clock.
Regulatory reform, infrastructure investment, skills development and better systems all have a role to play in Australia's productivity challenge.
But leadership matters, too.
The opportunities available through AI, automation and new ways of working keep growing. Leaders who approach work with the same assumptions, processes and habits will miss the chance to create more value with the resources they already have.
And there's a personal cost. If you're constantly racing the clock, holding on to too much and feeling there are never enough hours in the day, it's worth asking whether the problem really is the amount of time you have. Or whether it's how you've designed your work, your team and your expectations.
The goal isn't to do more in less time. It's to create more value, with greater clarity and less pressure.
So perhaps the most important shift is to stop asking, "How am I going to fit everything into my day?"
And start asking: What could become possible if I changed the way I work?
If you're a senior leader who's become the bottleneck in your own business and you want to free up your time for the work only you can do, executive coaching can help you rethink how you and your team work.