More freedom for ideas - why good time management is the key to innovation

30.07.2025

The coffee machine is still running, the inbox is overflowing and the next online meeting starts in three minutes - time for new ideas? Not a chance. In a working day that is often characterized by a hectic pace and constant availability, time becomes the most valuable resource. But how is it possible to create space for creativity when there is hardly any room in the calendar? And what does time management have to do with a culture of innovation? This is precisely where Anna Wörner, time management expert and founder of leadventure, works - and shows how good time management can be the key to more freedom of thought.

That sounds like structure is very important. Is it also important to have a certain "unstructure"?

Anna Wörner: Unstructure in the sense that you create free space is very important. I think the biggest pitfall when it comes to time management is the misconception that it is always better to do or create more. The more the better certainly works in very Tayloristic systems. If you believe that you have found the best way to work and be productive on an assembly line, for example, then this is based on the knowledge of an optimized process. Here, faster also means better. If you can produce five hundred cars an hour, that is better than if you can only produce three hundred cars. That is the economic system we come from. Finding "the one best way" and then producing as much as possible in as short a time as possible. But innovation works differently. Innovation doesn't work by doing more in the same amount of time, it happens when you have freedom. Freedom to not only recognize problems with customers or problems within the company, for example with process innovations, but to have the space to address them. This can mean first analyzing the cause. In other words, not immediately coming up with a solution, but taking the time and space to really understand the problem. In the next step, you can then find solutions and also test and build them. However, more is not always better, but rather this freedom is needed.

How can SMEs create more freedom for innovation?

Anna Wörner: This is a major challenge for many companies. It's a cultural issue as to how much freedom individual employees have in their day-to-day work. If you always work your staff to 100 percent capacity in order to get the best out of your customers, then it becomes difficult and tight. I have to consider: how much risk am I prepared to take, how much freedom can I allow my company and my team, perhaps with the consequence that I don't make the 120% annual profit, but the 110% and at the same time create the space for new ideas to emerge. There are very prominent examples of this where new product ideas have emerged, such as at Google, because the companies worked according to the 80-20 principle. They worked four days a week in their line activities, in their day-to-day business, and were given one day off a week. It doesn't always have to be so systematic that every person in a company should get a day off per se. That's a big idea and something that a large corporation can afford. But you can tackle something like that on a small scale. I'm currently experiencing a medium-sized company that has also launched a major innovation project. And they did it, for example, by looking for people on a voluntary basis. They put out a call within the company to see who had the freedom and motivation for the topic. This resulted in a very inspiring cross-functional project team made up of people who did not find each other according to the push principle, i.e. according to the motto "you are now innovative". They found each other according to the pull principle. This means that they pull the tasks for which they have the space and which they feel like doing. That can make a big difference. Instead of distributing tasks according to the push principle, those who have time and motivation join the project team. These are pragmatic solutions that also fit in with everyday life in SMEs. It's also not the case that every employee is given 50 percent time off for this innovation project, it's just a few hours a week. But the people have volunteered, they have the drive for it. There is also no incentive for them to be involved in the project. This prevents people from joining the project for the wrong reasons. It happens out of an intrinsic desire to drive this topic forward. Of course, there are advantages to being involved in this project, for example you get regular updates on what's happening in the industry or expert presentations. So it's a win-win situation, it's worth being involved, but at the same time it's a project that relies heavily on independence, voluntariness and personal motivation. Also on self-organization. The capacity is discussed in the team as to how much time is available. For example, in a seasonal project. There are people who can contribute more in summer and others in winter. This doesn't apply to every medium-sized company, but there may be a working group that has more capacity available towards the end of the year and another that has more in the first quarter. People get involved as they can and as they already are. That was the success factor in this project.

What are the most common time management traps that people can fall into?

Anna Wörner: I've already mentioned one, namely that companies think that more is always better and don't take into account that they need this freedom to identify problems and find solutions. This applies at all levels. It applies at the level of the individual when I pack my calendar full and have no room for a walk or a lunch break, for example. There are people who even forget to go to the toilet when their calendar is too full. So more is not always better, it's not just a stumbling block on an individual level. If we think of companies that also want to be innovative as entire constructs, then there can also be a stumbling block at this level. That you start everything that has potential and chronically overload the company as a result. I am currently experiencing a company that is very nice on the one hand and a problem on the other, because anyone can start a project. There are no criteria for which projects are started or not. There are no processes to check what resources these projects need and whether these resources are available. A lot of people work on topics that then stagnate because the resources are suddenly no longer available, for example from marketing or the IT department. This approach of doing everything that is possible and more is not only an organizational problem, but also an individual one. The organization must find a way to negotiate such issues. In other words, which projects or which potential innovations are tackled and which are not. There needs to be a common understanding in order to regularly prioritize and act accordingly, just like in politics. You also want them to sit down, talk to each other and find a solution together. This is exactly what needs to happen in companies. For example, we hold a lot of workshops on this using a method that also works well in this context, namely 3D worlds. The idea comes from a colleague from Hamburg, Janek Panneitz. The method is very well suited to bringing potential to the table and building a world. It looks a bit like a game board from "Settlers of Catan", with lots of hexagons on which the ideas that can be tackled or are in progress are then placed. Then you use other tiles to grow the islands that have been created. And you use different game pieces to incorporate the steakholder perspective. The added value behind this - and this is also what needs to happen in companies - is that you negotiate around the topics that are implemented and which are perhaps more important than others and which goals they contribute to. It is important to have these conversations, both in individual self-management and at company level. To enable innovation, you also have to say no to some things. This method can do that, but certainly some others can too. For example, there are also OKRs, i.e. Objectives and Key Results, which some companies work with. From quarter to quarter, both management and employees have to think about what the focus topics are that they want to address. These are methods and things that also need to happen at an organizational level so that there is room for manoeuvre within the company and so that time management and innovation management are not viewed individually. After all, time management must also be considered at company level. Individual employees quickly reach their limits if they are overloaded because the company says yes to everything.

Are there digital tools that have proven to be particularly helpful for time management, or can they actually cause even more stress?

Anna Wörner: Tools are initially neutral. Whether they help or not depends entirely on how I use them. There are many teams that have switched to maintaining their tickets in digital systems, i.e. using task management systems. It's the same here: if I don't use it properly, it's useless. For example, if I write every call I have to make in a ticket, then this ticket system becomes an octopus that I have to play with all day, but which doesn't add much value. This means that in order to use a digital task management system as a team in a meaningful way, I have to be able to use the tickets and the entire system appropriately for the situation. Writing the tickets large or small enough, putting in the right amount of information, that's something I have to figure out. The same applies to trivial things like your own inbox. That's also a tool and can be helpful, or not. And if it's overflowing and I'm forever sorting individual emails into folders or trying to find them, then it can become a hurdle and feel like a burden. At the same time, it can also be a good tool if I understand how I can quickly sift through these emails, for example, and don't have to spend a lot of time managing them. For example, I can have three folders, one of which is the inbox with emails that I still need to process. Then I might have an archive where everything else goes, and if I'm looking for something, I work with the search function, for example, and don't have countless subfolders that take me back to the administration mill. Then I might have another subfolder called "waiting for", so if I've written an email and am waiting for a reply, it's no longer a fixed to-do, but I still need to be able to see if there's no reply. For me personally, this form of management is a very good way of keeping my inbox tidy. You could continue in this way, for example with the calendar, which you organize in different colors so that you have a better overview. Or with the digital documentation in the company, for different meetings and with different methods of documentation, so that you don't have to ask yourself where to find the documentation before and after every meeting. It can take a lot of time to have to search for information before every meeting. This is therefore more of a time killer in the company. However, if the documents are all very well organized and efficiently written, this is a time booster again. These are just a few examples. Perhaps some of them sound familiar to you, or someone has been inspired to use the tools efficiently so that they become helpers and not obstacles in time management.

How do you see time management developing in the coming years?

Anna Wörner: I believe that time management will remain a challenge because the world is no longer slowing down. At the same time, I also see it as a great opportunity. There is no one solution for all innovation projects or one solution for all companies, but there are tools, techniques and skills that can be learned. For example, through techniques such as timeboxing, which is used a lot in rapid prototyping. When it comes to innovation, it's not just a question of time management, but also a question of your own mental capacity to manage it well. Dealing with uncertainty is also an issue that has a lot of potential. Innovation sometimes fails not because you don't have the time for it, but because you can't deal with uncertainty. Testing solutions that you don't even know will work and spending part of your budget or income on them is also a risk. And not being able to deal with this risk, not knowing the techniques and perhaps not reflecting well on yourself can be a hindrance to innovation. Long story short: I think it remains a challenge because the world is as fast-moving as it is. But there is a lot to learn in these areas - time management, mental capacity management and dealing with uncertainty. I see a great opportunity here for all of us, but also for the individual. Especially in a politically uncertain time, it is important to be able to deal with this well as a person. At the same time, I also see these issues as an opportunity for our economy in Germany and for our companies to learn in order to face these challenging times and remain capable of acting.

What is the most important step for innovators to integrate time management into their innovation process?

Anna Wörner: The very first step - and I hope this has already happened - is to understand that innovation is successful under different conditions in terms of time than production. Understanding that innovation happens in open spaces. The next step would then be to look within the company at what these free spaces could look like and who these people are who can take these free spaces and have the mental capacity and good ideas for the customers. And you have to make the risk manageable, i.e. not start the big projects straight away, but also see where the small things can be tested. Everyone has to decide for themselves how to do this. You have to find out for yourself whether you need to organize your routine work differently in the future, or whether you can create more freedom for yourself with digital tools, or whether you can take the mental freedom to be creative, for example by going for a walk. The levers can also lie at the organizational level. There are many tools that we have also touched on today. Perhaps this has inspired one or the other.

The interview was conducted by Barbara Groll, Media Relations, Bayern Innovativ GmbH, Nuremberg.