How to manage your time like a pro

Balancing a packed schedule while nurturing a team, Elizabeth Varley has turned Techhub’s co-working culture into a transatlantic business

For Elizabeth Varley, productivity isn’t just a virtue – it’s her business. As co-founder and CEO of Techhub, she builds co-working spaces to help startups perform at their best. The firm operates in six cities worldwide and, over the past eight years, has supported thousands of companies that have collectively raised more than $1bn. Varley is a high-achiever herself – she also sits on boards at both Imperial College London and the Open Data Institute. With Techhub’s New York opening creating a whole new set of transatlantic demands on her time, how does she fit in so much?

Give yourself space

‘I live on a garden square and every morning I walk through the garden to get to the Tube to go to work. I have a new rule, which I started last year: I do not look at my phone in the garden. It takes me one or two minutes to walk across it, but it's this moment that's just for me. I look around and see the changing seasons, the squirrels running around – and just enjoy it.’

Waking up to the working week

‘I tend to group my meetings into Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays I might still have meetings, but they'll tend to be internal meetings, so that I’m around for the team. Fridays are wild card day. But whatever the day, I wake up at around 6am. People often wonder how I do it – but really I'm just a morning person.’

A day at home is valuable

‘I work from home on a Wednesday every week. I get up, I don't have to travel anywhere, I don't have to get dressed, I don't have to worry about what my hair looks like or any of that external stuff that doesn't really matter to your job but still takes time and effort, and I sit down with my laptop. Everybody in my team knows that that's the day that their inboxes will fill up with things I need to delegate or send on. I also use that day for bigger things that I find much harder to get done if I'm having to stop every now and again for a meeting.’

Keep meetings to the point

‘There are some people on my team who tend to go into a lot of detail and narrative when presenting data. That's something that I find challenging unless that's the point of the meeting. I like to focus on strategy and action. We can expand the conversation if necessary, but I'm not a fan of going through everything just ‘because’.”

embrace Siri, embrace alarms

‘I never used Siri until I saw a friend go, “Set alarm, 8am” – and I was like, “Oh, that’s so useful!” Manually it takes about seven presses to get there. If it's something urgent, I'll set an alarm rather than a reminder, as you can still put text against an alarm. I do that is because I have to actively turn it off.’ »