Time Management Tips

As vice president of enterprise infrastructure services for Twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles, Nader Karimi chafed as e-mails and meetings gobbled up huge chunks of his schedule. A year ago he instructed his 140-member staff to cut back on the “cc” and “FYI” e-mails they sent him. “I trust my management team to handle a lot of issues and to filter that information to me through their status reports,” he says. Within a few months Karimi’s inbox slimmed from 150 to 60 e-mails daily. He streamlined status reports to bulleted, one-page memos and cut weekly two-hour staff meetings to one hour. Those closest to his office get less meeting time because they already get more “water cooler” chat time with him. Karimi, who was recently promoted to vice president of emerging technology, also tried something truly revolutionary in the meeting?heavy movie biz: “I started saying no to meetings.”