Three kinds of time

Extracted from the famous article "Who's got the monkey?" from Harvard Business Review with slight modification by me:

There are three kinds of management time:

• Boss-imposed time--used to accomplish those activities that the boss requires and that the manager cannot disregard without direct and swift penalty.
• System-imposed time--used to accommodate requests from peers for active support. Neglecting these requests will also result in penalties, though not always as direct or swift.
• Self-imposed time--used to do those things that the manager originates or agrees to do. A certain portion of this kind of time, however, will be taken by subordinates and is called subordinate-imposed time. The remaining portion will be the manager's own and is called discretionary time.

Managers should try to increase the discretionary component of their self-imposed time. They will then use the added increment to get better control over their boss-imposed and system-imposed activities.