If you have “direct reports” (people who consider you their boss – even in a volunteer sense) then it’s worth scheduling in weekly 1:1 meetings. The point of these meetings is firstly just to give your directs some personal time with you. Just a few minutes where they can talk with you as a human, not just as a boss/leader.
Because, if you think about it,many of the interruptions you get from your directs throughout the week… Most of them are trivial-ish. They’re not urgent.
The Manager-tools.com guys came up with an interesting explain action for this… They wonder if people interrupt their leaders simply because they want that personal time with them.
You might think you’re a really warm and personal leader… But if you’re getting little questions about lots of little things throughout the day, maybe your directs just want to spend some time with you?