Trade an open door for office hours

An open-door habit means anyone can interrupt you at any moment with a question. Office hours mean you set a window each day for questions and protect the rest of your time for real work.

Being available every second feels helpful, but it actually slows everyone down. You lose focus every time someone taps your shoulder, and your team learns to wait for you instead of solving small problems themselves. A fixed window teaches people to save up their questions and often answer their own along the way. I run office hours myself now, and I still notice how many questions people solve on their own once they know they have to hold them until the window opens.

Try this today: pick a short daily window, tell your team it is the time to bring you questions, and hold the rest of the day closed unless something is truly urgent. Watch how many questions solve themselves before the window opens.