Gary Zhou 
Elon Musk has a hectic schedule due to his daily operation of several billion-dollar companies. Most of us only have time to handle one full-time gig, but Musk is much different and cut from a different cloth. During a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, the multiple company CEO detailed how he manages his time.
Musk runs several companies, most notably Tesla, Twitter, and SpaceX, which require daily attention from him as they are the most active in his repertoire of entities. On the sidelines are Neuralink and the Boring Company, which, for starters, are also groundbreaking in their own right but are less taxing as they require less of Musk’s daily attention.
Musk detailed his strategy for handling his workload, and that usually comes down to separating each business’s needs for a single day of the week. For example, Monday might be set aside for issues dealing with Tesla, while Tuesday might be geared more toward the daily operation of Twitter.
However, there are days that may culminate in a multiple-entity visit from Musk. Yesterday, the day of the interview, was a Tesla day, but Musk admitted that Twitter might have some of his attention during the evening hours.
“These things somewhat intertwine,” he said. “Time management is extremely difficult.”
Many might ask why Musk chooses not to have an assistant or other person help him with his scheduling needs. He says that, for the most part, it is impossible for other people to know what the priorities are in a business sense. One day might turn into a Tesla-geared day due to an immediate need.
These are things that only Musk will know due to his position.
His assistant is “part-time,” he said, but admits the hours they work would be “technically full-time.”
In the past, his time management strategies have been highlighted by many entrepreneurs and regarded as highly successful and effective. Musk has utilized a strategy called timeboxing to divide and conquer a laundry list of tasks, which has helped maintain productivity and not devote too much time to a certain thing while others may get pushed to the wayside.
One thing is for sure, many of us could not handle the workload or stress that comes with running so many companies. Musk is truly one of a kind in this scenario.
