Time Management for Founders | Tory Burch Foundation

Running a company means making countless decisions every day. It isn’t easy; your attention’s pulled in every direction, distracting you from what matters most. But according to Garima Shah, co-founder and president of e-invoicer Biller Genie, one move can cut through the chaos and allow everything to fall into place: optimizing your hours. 

“Time is currency and, unlike money, you cannot make more,” said Shah, a self-professed time-management fanatic whose company was recently named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing businesses in the U.S. “You can only spend it in the right way.”

As part of our webinar series, Shah shared her strategic framework to better allocate your time and make every hour count. And, no, it’s not about the impossible pressures of women doing it all. Time management for founders is about agency. “This allows me to do the things I really want to do,” she said, “and, more than anything, enjoy my life and make the most of it.”

STOP SAYING “BUSY.”

“I’m too busy” is an all-too-familiar refrain. Most of us have said it, at one time or another, to explain why we couldn’t get something done. “But it’s a cop-out,” said Shah. “Eliminate the word ‘busy’ from your vocabulary.”

If you missed a deadline or forgot to call someone back, it wasn’t because you were “too busy,” she explained, noting that every hour, every minute, in your day is spoken for—whether for errands or sleep, doomscrolling or a TikTok black hole. “You didn’t get to it because you didn’t prioritize it. We’re not victims of our time.”

The key, as Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, put it, is to not prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities. In other words: stop chasing tasks, and be intentional with your time.

AUDIT YOUR TIME.

The next step is tracking how you actually spend your time. For one week, jot down what you do every 15 minutes—and record everything, even quick breaks. “Set alarms to remind you,” Shah advised. “You’ll see patterns and notice when you’re most productive and focused.” On the flip side—and equally as helpful—you’ll uncover when you’re most likely to waste time, too.

“If you don’t measure, you have no idea what’s actually happening. This gives you a baseline,” Shah said, noting that the results don’t have to line up perfectly with your pie chart. “I wish I could hit those [chart] percentages every day. Some days are better than others, and that’s the reality.”

THE EISENHOWER MATRIX: SORT YOUR TASKS.

To properly prioritize, turn to the Eisenhower Matrix. Named after our 34th president, it’s a simple tool for deciding what actually requires your attention versus what can be handed off or dropped entirely.

Draw a two-by-two square and label the quadrants “Urgent” and “Not Urgent” across the top and “Important” and “Not Important” down the left side. Take the results from the above time audit, the log of your daily to-dos, and divide them accordingly.

Top Left: Do

Tasks that require your immediate attention. They have clear deadlines and there could be significant consequences if not completed in time.

Top Right: Schedule

These are items that don’t come with a deadline but still move you closer to your long-term goals. For instance, if you have a major presentation in a few months, make sure to commit time now—say, an hour a week—so you stay ahead of it.

Bottom Left: Delegate

The stuff that needs to get done, but doesn’t require your expertise. Shah provided a perfect case in point: when she and her husband don’t have time to pick up their kids, they turn to carpooling or Uber.

Delegating at work? She emphasized clarity and transparency, especially for small companies where people wear many hats. Define who owns what, and be honest about when you need help or when someone else can do it better or faster.

Bottom Right: Delete

The distractions that pull you off course, the things that don’t add any measurable value.

DISCOVER YOUR GENIUS ZONE.

Once you’ve determined what truly matters, it’s time to dig deeper and identify your zone of genius, the sweet spot where passion meets skill.

Consider the things you love to do. You may excel at some, struggle with others—and the same goes for what you don’t enjoy. 

Superimpose this with the tasks that are remaining in your “Do” and “Schedule” boxes from your Eisenhower Matrix, and focus on these. They’re worth your time, but do they all deserve your best time?

“If you don’t like it and you’re not good at it, stop doing it,” Shah added. “It’s empowering to say, ‘I suck at that and I don’t want to do it.'”

Pro Tip: If you’re unsure where your genius zone lies, run a SWOT analysis, an exercise that examines your strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats—learn more here.

CONTROL YOUR CALENDAR.

Now that you’ve uncovered your zone of genius, it’s time to target and prioritize those tasks with two critical time-management techniques: 

Time Block — setting aside time for a specific activity

The goal is to give yourself sufficient, uninterrupted time to work on something. For example, think back to your pie chart and time block the different slices, such as budgeting or exercise. 

Time Box — putting a hard limit on the maximum time you will spend on an activity

This is about understanding the level of effort a task will take and deciding when to cut yourself off, so you don’t get bogged down. “We often do things over and over because we think we have infinite time,” said Shah. “Remember, perfection is the enemy of good.” 

OWN YOUR TIME.

Shah quoted motivational speaker Zig Ziglar for this next step: “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have the same 24-hour days.”

Define the single most strategic thing you’ll focus on each day, whether it’s driving revenue or protecting mental health. Own that and, no matter what, get it done. Anchor the rest of your actions around it.

Emergencies will come up, Shah admitted, and it’s OK. “That’s why I’m specific about one item, not three or five, and being intentional with it,” she explained. “Give yourself that win every day.”

BRING IN YOUR TEAM.

This framework isn’t just for founders. Get your team involved. Guide them through the process. Exercises like pinpointing strengths and weaknesses can be tough, and an outside perspective helps. Support your team is doing what they do best, so you can take things off your plate. The objective is for you, as the founder, to have the capacity to spend time on your business, not in it. 

Don’t forget to establish boundaries, too. Protect the time you’ve blocked or boxed. Use codes for truly urgent situations. Shah’s team, for example, will call her twice in a row when a crisis arises. 

“Email, Slack, WhatsApp—there’s so much coming at you,” she said, noting that she turns off her notifications. “Give yourself space away from your phone.” Even when multitasking, it takes time to switch gears, and those lost moments add up.

Last but not least, Shah recommended revisiting the steps regularly—quarterly at first, then once a year or two. The process felt “painful” at the beginning, she admitted, but now it’s second nature.