The Effective Club Interview: A Conversation with Time Management Coach Priya Nair

We sat down with Priya Nair, a time management coach who works with executives and creative teams to reclaim time without decreasing impact. Below are edited highlights from our conversation, focusing on practical frameworks, common mistakes, and actionable tips you can use this week.

“Time isn’t the scarce resource — attention is. When you guard attention, time becomes more productive.” — Priya Nair

What’s the first thing you ask a new client?

Priya: I ask about the last time they ended a week feeling they had made meaningful progress. Most people can’t remember. That’s a signal we’re optimizing for busyness rather than outcomes. The next step is to identify one metric that would indicate meaningful progress for them — for example, ‘two chapters drafted’ or ‘three strategic conversations completed’. We focus the next two weeks on that metric.

How do you help clients who are overwhelmed by incoming demands?

Priya: I teach them a three-part triage: (1) Clarify responsibility — are you the decision owner? (2) Convert to a one-sentence required action — if you can’t express the action in a sentence, it’s not actionable. (3) Either route it to a scheduled slot or delegate. Many people keep tasks in their inbox because they haven’t clarified what action is required.

What are common time management myths you see?

• Myth 1: More hours always mean more output. Reality: Quality of attention matters more than hours.
• Myth 2: Multitasking is efficient. Reality: Multitasking increases switching costs and errors.
• Myth 3: Being busy equals being important. Reality: Being busy often means you are doing other people’s priorities.

Quick wins for readers

1. Time audit: Track how you spend your working hours for three days and cluster activities into themes. You’ll often find low-value patterns you can change.
2. Micro-delegation: Identify one recurring task you can delegate this week and create a 10-minute onboarding document for it.
3. Protected afternoons: Block two afternoons a week as protected deep work time and communicate it to your team.

How should people handle urgent interruptions?

Priya: Build a triage checklist that you can run in 30 seconds. If it’s urgent, escalate; if not, schedule. The checklist should answer: impact, owner, outcome, and next step. Use a shared channel for urgent issues so they don’t land as email and create context switching for everyone.

Long-term mindset shifts

Priya emphasizes that time mastery is primarily behavioral and social: “You can change personal habits, but lasting change happens when you alter the social norms in your team about response expectations, meeting culture, and availability.” Start small with norms that benefit everyone: shorter meetings, clearer agendas, and fewer recurring all-hands interruptions.

Closing advice

Priya: Start with one meaningful metric and protect the time needed to make progress on it. Small wins compound. If you rescue one afternoon a week for priorities, you’ll be surprised how much forward motion you get in three months.

We thank Priya for sharing her frameworks. If you’d like access to her two-week planning worksheet, sign up for our newsletter where we’ll publish a downloadable template this month.