From Overwhelmed to On Top: How Managers at Upflow Get Things Done
Alex Louisy
Jul 4, 2025
At Upflow, we aim to build an organization, product, and offering that truly make a difference. That kind of ambition requires focus, strong execution, and clear direction at every level of the company. As we’ve grown, I’ve had to regularly rethink how to be effective in my role as CEO, especially as our context and priorities have continued to evolve. With a larger team, I also started spending more time helping our leadership do the same, so they could thrive in a fast-moving environment.
The questions I hear the most from managers are surprisingly consistent: “How do I stay on top of everything? What should I focus on? How do I make sure things actually get done?"
In this article, I’ll share a few principles and tactics I’ve picked up over the years. Some come from my own experience, others from coaches, peers, or frameworks we’ve adopted at Upflow. I originally wrote this for our team, but wanted to share it more broadly, something we often do at Upflow. These ideas aren’t one-size-fits-all. They won’t work for everyone. But they’ve helped me and many on our team, become more effective managers. I hope they’re useful to you too. Keep reading as we explore:
The Classic Symptoms
As teams grow and responsibilities expand, I’ve noticed a few common patterns that trip up even the best new managers.
The “Too Many Priorities, Not Enough Bandwidth” Trap
When you shift from being an individual contributor to managing others, your days quickly fill up: team check-ins, hiring, strategy, execution. Suddenly, everything feels urgent. You’re constantly busy, but your most important work isn’t moving forward. The moment I hear “not enough bandwidth,” it’s usually a signal that priorities need to be revisited.
The “Always Interrupted” Cycle
Managers need to be accessible, but too much availability leads to constant context switching. You’re bouncing between Slack, meetings, questions, and unexpected issues. Some of that’s normal. But when it keeps you from doing your core work, it becomes a problem.
The most common trap? Spending the whole day in reactive mode. You’re drained by the end of it, but nothing meaningful got done. That kind of day is demoralizing, and over time it leads to burnout. When I see someone stuck like this, it’s often because they’ve lost time for the “important but not urgent” work.
Either of these patterns is usually a sign that a manager’s setup needs a reset. That’s where this guide comes in. Let’s look at how to shift the day-to-day.
Starting point: Understanding your Context
Before diving into tactics, I want to zoom out a bit and focus on your context. Your company has a mission, your team has objectives. Every single hour of work you do, or your team does, should take into account this context. But in fast-paced environments, it’s easy for managers to lose sight of this.
Your role isn’t just to keep things moving, it’s to help your team succeed in a way that aligns with company goals. You’re not just an operator. You’re a multiplier.
So when we talk about effectiveness, we’re not just talking about personal productivity. It’s about setting the right direction, enabling your team, and making sure your work drives the outcomes that matter most. You do it for you, you also do it for your team, so they can be successful.
That’s why context has to be front and center. As a manager, you should always be able to answer:
What are the company’s top 3 priorities right now?
What are my team’s objectives?
What do I personally need to do to help hit those goals?
Getting clear on these questions is the foundation for everything else. Without that clarity, even great execution can miss the mark.
Now let’s look at how to stay grounded in your context, every step of the way.
Planning and Timing
To stay connected to context, I recommend setting up two planning rhythms or “time horizons.” These should work together to keep you aligned on both the big picture and day-to-day execution.
Long-Term Planning (Quarterly or Bi-Yearly)
This is your strategic layer. Every 3 to 6 months, you want to step back and ask:
What outcomes matter most during this period?
What projects or goals will drive the biggest impact?
At Upflow, we usually align this to quarterly OKRs or company-wide goals. As a manager, your job is to translate those into meaningful team-level objectives. We usually frame it “Our team will be successful 6 months from now if…”. These should be 3 to 5 high level objectives (qualitative) with associated key results (quantitative measures) that are not the “business as usual” initiatives that are already in motion. You want to think about initiatives that move the needle.
Short-Term Cadence (Weekly or biweekly)
With your long-term goals in place, you can now work backwards into your weekly or biweekly execution. This is your operational layer. Each cycle should be planned with the long-term in mind. You’ll see more on how to do this using the “goal of the week” approach later in this guide.
This dual-horizon approach isn’t just for product or business managers. Most product teams create roadmaps quarterly and run sprints biweekly. Business teams often use a similar cadence for OKRs. Whatever your function, having both a strategic and an operational rhythm helps you stay focused on what matters without losing momentum in the day-to-day.
So, how do you make this work in practice? Let’s get into it.
The Practical Guide: How to Make It Happen
Core Principles Before You Start
Before we get into tactics, here are a few key principles that lay the groundwork for being an effective manager.
1. Don’t Underestimate the “how”
Most managers know what needs to get done. They often show up with long to-do lists and tell me, “There’s just too much on it.” But the real challenge is how to get those things done. Being good at your job is one thing. Being good at planning your job is another, and the latter is a skill you can learn. I encourage our managers to treat planning and execution as disciplines worth improving.
Effective execution requires structure and discipline, especially around how you manage your time and attention. That’s why I recommend building clear processes into your planning. Not to be rigid or bureaucratic, but to stay in control of your time and focus on what truly matters. More on this in the “Build your ideal week” section below.
2. Prioritize the “important”, not just the “urgent”
Another common theme is the struggle to manage the “important, not urgent” topics. The urgent is always loud. But most of the time, the high-leverage work is quiet. Things like long-term planning, 1:1 development conversations, taking a step back to change course, hiring the right person, or solving a key process bottleneck. These don’t feel urgent until they explode. So one of the key challenges for effective managers is dedicating time to do those.
Block dedicated time for these tasks. Treat them like client meetings and defend them just as firmly.
3. Focus on “Timeboxed tasks” rather than “Completed Tasks”
This might sound counter-intuitive. When you deep work on something, it’s tempting to say “I’ll work on it until it’s done and then move to the next thing”. But when you’re a manager, things are rarely 100% done. There’s always something you can improve, fine tune, or revisit.
One of the best concepts I learned from Near Eyal in his book “Indistractable”, is that you should timebox tasks - and be disciplined about it. The idea behind it is that “80% done and shared” is better than “100% perfect but never finished”. In essence, your focus should move to sticking to the time allocated to each task, rather than trying to complete tasks in sequence.
This has helped me get tremendously more productive, by focusing only for one or two hours on a complex task, and committing to completing it or sharing it during that time window, and not doing anything else. The challenge is the discipline of doing nothing other than the task for that given time slots. No slack, no email, no notifications. Just 100% dedicated to this one thing. It’s hard but very, very effective.
4. Never Be the Information Bottleneck
Another issue is when managers become information bottlenecks. In today’s workplace, they are often bombarded with emails, slacks, messages and notifications from everywhere. It’s easy to be buried under those quickly and lose control. I can quickly see this happening when managers have hundreds of unread emails or slack notifications. When this happens, you can no longer separate signal from noise. And you become an information bottleneck, and you start slowing things down. You’re not a force multiplier anymore, you’re the opposite, slowing down your team and people around you.
You’ll always have a lot of input coming your way. The key is to process it efficiently. I recommend adopting an Inbox Zero mindset, not just for email, but for Slack, Notion, and any other channels you use. I check and triage these at set times during the day using a simple rule:
Can I reply in under 2 minutes? Do it now.
Does it need more thought? Schedule it.
Should someone else handle it? Delegate.
It’s irrelevant or doesn’t need follow up? Archive it.
If you want to stay on top of things, you need to use the right tools, and use them well. Personally, I’m a heavy email user. I process between 100 and 300 emails a day. If that sounds like you, then properly configuring your email client is essential. Gmail can be set up to support an inbox-zero workflow. I’m also a big fan of Superhuman, especially their AI features, which have made me significantly more efficient. Whatever tool you use, efficiency doesn’t happen by accident. You have to learn how to use your tools properly. I’m often surprised when I see managers with 1,000+ unread emails, clicking through Slack channels one by one, or not using keyboard shortcuts. These are all fixable with training, and we make sure to cover that with our managers.
But it’s not just about the tools, because you also need to set expectations with your team around how you process information. At Upflow, we ask every manager to create a public “How to Work With Me” document. It’s a simple idea I borrowed from Claire Hughes Johnson, former COO at Stripe, as featured in the High Growth Handbook. This internal document explains how you work, when you’re usually available, and most importantly how you want to receive information. It reduces friction, avoids misunderstandings, and keeps your team aligned.
5. Create Leverage: Delegate and Empower
Being effective as a manager isn’t about doing more personally, it’s about creating leverage.
Andy Grove summed this up well in “High Output Management”
💡 A manager’s output = The output of his organization + The output of the neighboring organizations under his influence
So the question becomes: how can you make your team more effective, not just yourself.
At Upflow, we use the RACI framework to make roles and responsibilities clear. For any project, we define:
Responsible: Who’s doing the work?
Accountable: who owns the outcome?
Consulted: who should be involved?
Informed: who needs to stay updated?
As a manager, you will often be accountable, but not always responsible. That means setting clear expectations, trusting others to execute, and giving them space to deliver. Clarifying to your team that “being accountable for something” doesn’t mean “doing it” is very important. You can significantly increase your leverage by delegating effectively.
The Tactical Implementation
Now that we’ve covered the high-level principles, let’s get into the practical side of how I actually structure my time and get things done. These techniques are organized around three main themes:
Clarify Your Priorities: Goals of the Week, Monday and Friday routine,
Structure Your Time Intentionally: Brain mode and habits, Calendar & scheduling, Ideal week
Protect Execution from Noise: External call, No meeting day
1. The “Goal of the Week” (GOW) Method
I have built a weekly habit into my schedule that is my superpower. Every Monday morning, I block an hour in my calendar to plan my week. I first take a look at my long-term objectives and ask myself.
What did I complete last week? What didn’t get done? I use a quick traffic light system to assess at a glance
What are the 3 to 5 important things I want to accomplish this week, and will have an impact on my long-term roadmap When will I work on these goals? The key there is to allocate time in the calendar to do those.
What meetings or tasks can I delegate?
What should I cancel or say no to?
This becomes my weekly plan.
I’ve experimented with various to-do apps and Notion boards, but I’ve found that simply writing this in an email works best for me.
The secret to making this habit stick is accountability. A tip I borrowed from Matt Mochary’s The Great CEO Within: share your weekly plan with someone. It doesn’t matter who, as long as you commit to doing it every week. For me, I send it (religiously) to our Chief of Staff, Louis, every Monday morning without fail. This helps in two ways: it keeps me accountable, and it forces me to confront tasks I keep postponing. That regular review helps me reassess priorities and stay on track.
2. Calendar and Scheduling Practices
Your time is one of your most limited resources and your calendar is a direct reflection of how you manage it. It’s not just for planning; it’s also a tool for tracking where your time actually goes. I find it helpful to separate calendaring from planning:
Calendaring = Blocking off time to do the work.
Planning = Deciding what work needs to happen during that time.
Use the mantra “what’s not in your calendar does not exist” as much as you can, including for downtime.
But how should you organize your calendar for a short-term time horizon, say over a week?
3. Know Your Brain Modes and habits
Before you start scheduling, take the time to understand how you work best. Different tasks require different types of mental energy: 1:1s, deep work, brainstorming, and execution all require different modes. Start by identifying two things:
What types of work you need to do
When you’re best equipped to do each type
For example, I do my best deep thinking in the mornings. So I usually block 8–11 a.m. for deep, focused work. Meetings and collaborative work are scheduled in the afternoons, when my energy for solo focus tends to dip.
Everyone has their own rhythm. Some people need long, uninterrupted blocks. Others thrive with shorter bursts and frequent switches. Some are energized by morning workouts, others prefer a midday break. Some need to leave early to pick up kids, others hit their stride later in the day. The point is: observe your own habits, then plan around them. Don’t force yourself into someone else’s ideal week. Build one that works for you.
4. Build Your Ideal Week
Once I understood my energy patterns and constraints, I created an “ideal work week.” I took a blank weekly calendar and started blocking time across five days, using color-coded themes to organize the flow. My blocks include:
Focus blocks for deep work - these are blocks allocated for deep work. Every Monday, I allocate those blocks based on my Goals of the Week.
Slots for recurring meetings and 1o1 meetings
Slots for personal time like workouts or family commitments. It’s important to include them if they overlap with your work day.
Buffer time to catch up or deal with the unexpected.
This setup doesn’t always go perfectly. Things shift. Priorities change. But having a baseline helps me stay grounded. And when the week gets chaotic, as it often does, I use this ideal schedule to ensure I stay on track.
Next, I’ll walk you through a few key rituals within this “ideal week” that have worked particularly well for me.
5. “Free for external calls”
I’m a big fan of scheduling tools (Calendly, Notion Calendar) that let people book time directly in your calendar. They save a lot of back-and-forth and make scheduling much easier. But if you’re not careful, they can quickly take over your calendar. To stay in control, I only open up specific time slots for external bookings, usually just a few windows per week, and always in the afternoon to protect my deep work time in the morning.
This way, I get the best of both worlds: people can easily book time with me, but only when it fits my ideal schedule.
6. “No-Meeting day”
At Upflow, we’ve implemented a company-wide No-Meeting Day every Wednesday, and I strongly recommend other organizations do the same. Context switching is one of the biggest productivity killers. Having a full day with no meetings creates space for deep, focused work, and that can be a game changer.
It’s important that this is set at the company level, so everyone respects and aligns around it. I recommend placing it mid-week. Early in the week tends to be busy with planning and kickoff meetings. And late in the week often gets hijacked by last-minute urgencies. Wednesday strikes the right balance, deep in the flow of the week, but with enough momentum to make real progress.
7. Friday Cool Down
For a long time, Fridays were frustrating. I’d stack up meetings, rush through the day, and head into the weekend with a full inbox and a long list of unfinished tasks. Now, I treat Fridays differently.
Just like my Monday planning ritual, I’ve blocked a two-hour “cool down” session every Friday. This time is reserved for wrapping up urgent tasks, clearing out the inbox, re-adjusting priorities.
It’s a small change that’s made a big difference. I close out the week with more clarity, and start the next one with less baggage.
8. Review the Process Regularly
One important reminder: you don’t need to implement everything at once. And even when you do, things will change, and that’s normal. Sometimes it’s you. Sometimes it’s your environment. For example, when we started expanding globally at Upflow, we had to rethink our entire meeting rhythm to account for time zone differences. That meant changing my own schedule to make it work for the team.
That’s why I recommend setting time once a quarter or every six months to step back and ask: What routines are working? What’s no longer serving you? What needs to be adjusted? Doing this with someone else, like a peer or manager, can help drive accountability and give you a fresh perspective.
It’s not about perfection, it’s about small, continuous improvements.
Conclusion
Being a manager in a fast-paced startup isn’t easy. It’s messy, demanding, and always changing. But with the right mindset, systems, and a bit of discipline, you can bring structure to the chaos and stay focused on what really matters.
One of my friends and mentors starts each of her 1o1 with a simple question: “So, are you on top of your sh**; or is sh** on top of you?”. It’s blunt, but it gets to the point. My goal is to end each week feeling like I’m on top of it, and this approach helps me get there.
The practices I’ve shared here aren’t magic fixes. But they’ve helped me and many of the managers I’ve worked with become more effective, more focused, and less reactive.
If you’re a founder or manager wrestling with bandwidth, prioritization, or clarity, I hope this gives you a useful starting point. And if you’ve found systems that work well for you, I’d love to hear them. I’m always learning.
Feel free to reach out via email or on LinkedIn.
– Alex
Useful References:
Matt Mochary, The Great CEO Within
Andrew S Grove, High Output Management
Nir Eyal, Indistractable
Simon Sinek, Start with why
Claire Hughes Johnson, Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building