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crisis, he famously slept on the factory floor 🏭 to work around the clock and show solidarity with his team. He explained that he did this to save time ⏰ and because he “wanted to suffer more than any other employee” during the intense production ramp-up. ⏳ 5-Minute Time Blocks: Musk often breaks his calendar 📆 into 5-minute chunks , allotting each segment to a particular task, meeting, or topic By micro-managing his schedule this way, he can switch contexts rapidly and address issues across different companies on the same day. 📦 The ‘Batching’ of Tasks: He batches similar tasks together to stay in the right mindset 🧠 . For instance, Musk often sets aside specific days of the week for specific companies or functions. At one point, he structured his week roughly as: • Mondays and Thursdays at SpaceX in LA • Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Tesla ⚡ in Austin, and often • Split Fridays between both (with weekends as needed) 👥 Empowering Key Leaders: Each Musk company has strong executives who head important divisions or run daily operations. A prime example is at SpaceX, where President and COO Gwynne Shotwell handles much of the day-to-day management 🎛️ . Shotwell has 21 direct reports (vice presidents and managers) under her, whereas Musk only has 4 direct reports, illustrating how much operational authority she carries 🤝 Delegating After Initial Setup: Musk often micromanages in the early stages of a project and then delegates more as things stabilize. He immerses himself when a product is in a critical development phase — for example, personally refining the design of the Tesla Model S or the SpaceX Raptor engine 🔧 — and once he’s satisfied the team has a clear path, he hands off a lot of the execution to the team. 📢 Direct Communication and Flat Structure: Musk also encourages a relatively flat organizational
structure to speed up execution. In an email 📧 to employees, he told staff to avoid bureaucracy and communicate directly across departments rather than through layers of management. One of his productivity “rules” was that anyone should be able to talk to anyone to solve problems — if following the “chain of command” slows things down, he explicitly says to bypass it to get work done 🚦 . Love him or hate him, as the richest man in the world and currently running five companies with an estimated combined value of over $1.6 trillion 💵 plus the newly formed DOGE for the U.S. government 🇸 , it is hard to argue he isn’t the G.O.A.T 🐐 in being a visionary in time management and entrepreneurship. ⚡ Which of these eight points could you implement to get more done? The ability to work smarter and execute more quickly will be one of the most important differentiators for entrepreneurs over the next five years. 🚀💡
“May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands.” —Psalm 90:17 –Shaun
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