How a Marketing Director Used Beyond Time to Get Promoted

Sarah had been a Marketing Director for three years and in marketing for seven. She was good at her job. Her campaigns hit targets. Her team respected her. Her reviews were consistently positive.

But she was stuck.

Every quarter, Sarah watched peers in other departments get promoted while she kept doing the same work at the same level. She worked 55+ hours a week and felt perpetually busy, yet she could not point to a single strategic initiative she had driven in the past year. When her VP asked about her long-term career goals, she gave the same vague answer every time: "I want to grow into a leadership role."

That answer was the problem. No specifics. No metrics. No plan.

Then Sarah found Beyond Time while searching for a goal-tracking app. Eight months later, she was promoted to VP of Marketing. Her boss cited her "strategic transformation" and "visible leadership growth" as the deciding factors.

This is the story of how she got there -- step by step, month by month, with the specific systems, habits, and numbers that made it happen.

The Problem: Busy but Not Strategic

Sarah's typical week before Beyond Time looked like this:

• Monday: Back-to-back meetings from 9 AM to 4 PM. Catching up on email until 7 PM.
• Tuesday: Reviewing campaign reports. Putting out fires from the weekend. Joining three "quick syncs" that lasted 45 minutes each.
• Wednesday: Team 1-on-1s all morning. Afternoon spent rewriting copy her team submitted because it was faster than giving feedback.
• Thursday: Cross-functional meetings. Budget review prep. More email.
• Friday: Trying to do the strategic work she had planned for Monday. Failing. Carrying it to the weekend.

Sound familiar? Sarah was trapped in what productivity researchers call the "urgency trap" -- spending most of her time reacting to other people's priorities instead of advancing her own.

She knew she wanted to become VP. But she had never defined what that actually required or built a plan to get there. Her career goals were fuzzy, and fuzzy goals produce fuzzy results.

The Numbers That Shocked Her

When Sarah eventually started tracking her time in Month 2, the data confirmed what she suspected but had never quantified:

• 60% of her week went to reactive work (email, ad-hoc requests, unplanned meetings)
• 25% went to operational management (team oversight, reporting, reviews)
• 15% went to strategic initiatives (the work that would actually get her promoted)
• Her planned vs. actual accuracy was 55% -- meaning nearly half of what she planned each day never got done

She was spending over 30 hours a week on work that maintained the status quo and fewer than 8 hours on work that moved her career forward.

Month 1: Setting Her First Career OKR

Sarah's first step with Beyond Time was not tracking time or building habits. It was defining what success looked like.

She used the OKR framework to create her first career objective. OKRs -- Objectives and Key Results -- force you to pair an ambitious qualitative goal with specific, measurable outcomes. No hand-waving allowed.

Sarah's Career OKR

Objective: Earn promotion to VP of Marketing by Q3 2026.

Key Results:

1. Lead and ship 2 cross-functional strategic initiatives that generate measurable business impact (revenue or pipeline growth).
2. Increase direct executive visibility by presenting at 4 leadership meetings and 2 industry events.
3. Develop team capability so that 2 direct reports can independently own campaign strategy end-to-end.

Each Key Result targeted a specific gap between her current Director-level performance and what VP-level performance looked like. She did not guess at these. She scheduled a 30-minute conversation with her VP and asked directly: "What would I need to demonstrate to be considered for a VP role?"

That conversation -- which she had been avoiding for two years -- gave her the raw material for her Key Results. Her VP told her he needed to see strategic ownership, executive presence, and team development. Those three themes became her three Key Results.

Breaking Key Results Into Monthly Milestones

Sarah broke each Key Result into monthly milestones inside Beyond Time:

KR1 -- Strategic Initiatives:

• Month 2: Identify and propose initiative to leadership
• Month 3: Get budget approval and assemble cross-functional team
• Month 4-5: Execute initiative, track weekly progress
• Month 6: Ship first initiative, start second
• Month 7-8: Ship second initiative, compile impact report

KR2 -- Executive Visibility:

• Month 2: Volunteer for next leadership meeting presentation
• Month 3: Submit speaking proposal to one industry conference
• Month 4: Deliver first leadership presentation
• Month 5-6: Attend and speak at industry event
• Month 7-8: Deliver remaining presentations, build internal case study

KR3 -- Team Development:

• Month 2: Identify two direct reports for development
• Month 3: Create development plans with each person
• Month 4-6: Gradually delegate campaign strategy ownership
• Month 7-8: Both reports independently running campaigns

This breakdown turned an 8-month promotion timeline into specific monthly checkpoints. Every month, she knew exactly what "on track" looked like.

Month 2-3: Time Tracking Reveals the Truth

With her OKR set, Sarah activated Beyond Time's time tracking. She did not change her behavior at first. She just tracked.

The results were uncomfortable.

Where Her 55 Hours Actually Went

After two weeks of consistent tracking, here is what the data showed:

She was spending 14 hours a week on email and Slack -- the equivalent of nearly two full workdays. Eleven more hours went to unplanned meetings and fire drills. Together, reactive communication consumed 25 hours of her week. Strategic work got 5 hours.

No wonder she was not making progress on her promotion goals. She was not spending time on promotion-worthy work.

The Redesign

Sarah used her time data to redesign her week. She did not try to overhaul everything at once. She made three changes:

Change 1: Email batching. She moved from continuous email checking to three dedicated 45-minute blocks per day (8 AM, 12 PM, 4 PM). This alone recovered 6 hours per week.

Change 2: Meeting audit. She reviewed every recurring meeting and asked: "Does this require my presence, or can I delegate, decline, or get the notes async?" She eliminated 4 recurring meetings and delegated attendance at 2 others. This freed 4.5 hours per week.

Change 3: Strategic time blocks. She blocked two 2-hour windows per week (Tuesday and Thursday mornings) exclusively for strategic initiative work. She marked them as "busy" and treated them like client meetings -- non-negotiable.

These three changes shifted her time allocation significantly. By the end of Month 3, her weekly breakdown had already changed:

She was not perfect. She still had weeks where fires consumed her strategic blocks. But the trend was clear, and the time tracking data gave her the evidence to protect her boundaries.

If you have never done a time audit, this step alone can transform your productivity. Our guide on time blocking breaks down the method Sarah used.

Month 4-5: Building Daily Habits Connected to Career Goals

Time tracking showed Sarah where her time was going. But she also needed to build new skills and behaviors that would make her VP-ready. Working on strategic initiatives was necessary but not sufficient. She needed to become a different kind of leader.

Sarah set up three daily and weekly habits inside Beyond Time, each directly connected to one of her Key Results:

Habit 1: 30 Minutes of Strategic Reading (Daily)

Sarah realized that her marketing knowledge was deep but narrow. She knew performance marketing inside out, but she had gaps in brand strategy, market positioning, and business model analysis -- the kind of thinking VP-level marketers do.

She committed to 30 minutes of reading every morning before checking email. Her reading list included:

• Industry analysis reports from marketing trade publications
• Strategy case studies from Harvard Business Review
• Competitor earnings calls and investor presentations
• Books recommended by her VP (she asked for his reading list)

This was not casual scrolling. She kept a running notes document where she captured one insight per day and how it might apply to her company. After four months, she had a library of 120+ strategic insights she could reference in meetings and presentations.

Habit 2: Weekly 1-on-1 Prep (30 Minutes Every Sunday)

Before Beyond Time, Sarah walked into her weekly 1-on-1 with her VP unprepared. She would react to whatever he brought up and leave without advancing her own agenda.

She built a 30-minute Sunday prep habit:

• Review her OKR progress for the week
• Identify one strategic insight to share (from her daily reading)
• Prepare one specific ask or update related to her promotion goals
• Draft talking points for any cross-functional updates

This simple habit transformed her 1-on-1s from status updates into strategic conversations. Her VP later told her that these meetings were a major factor in his confidence that she was ready for the VP role. He said he noticed the shift after the third week.

Habit 3: Monthly Industry Talk or Presentation (Monthly)

To build executive presence, Sarah committed to speaking at least once a month -- internally or externally. In Month 4, she presented a competitive analysis at the leadership team meeting. In Month 5, she hosted a marketing team lunch-and-learn on market positioning.

Each presentation built her confidence and visibility. By Month 6, her VP was inviting her to present at board-level meetings -- something that had never happened at the Director level.

Month 6-7: Planned vs. Actual Becomes Her Secret Weapon

By Month 6, Sarah had been tracking her planned vs. actual time for four months. The data showed a clear trend: she was getting dramatically better at estimating how long things would take and protecting her planned time.

How Her Planning Accuracy Improved

A 45% planned vs. actual gap means nearly half your day goes off-script. You plan to work on the brand strategy deck for two hours, but three "urgent" Slack messages, an unplanned meeting, and a last-minute report request eat the entire block.

A 12% gap means you execute almost exactly what you planned. Interruptions still happen, but they are the exception, not the norm. You have built systems to protect your time and developed the judgment to estimate tasks accurately.

Using the Data for Meeting Prep

Sarah started using her planned vs. actual data in a way she had not expected: meeting preparation.

She noticed that she consistently underestimated how long meeting prep took. A "quick 15 minutes of prep" for a leadership presentation always turned into 45 minutes. A "30-minute budget review" actually required 90 minutes when she factored in pulling reports and formatting slides.

Once she saw the pattern, she adjusted. She started blocking realistic prep time based on her historical data -- not based on optimistic guesses. This had two effects:

1. She stopped being underprepared for important meetings.
2. She stopped over-scheduling her days with unrealistic plans.

The result was better performance in the meetings that mattered most. Her leadership presentations went from "good but rushed" to polished and strategic. Her VP noticed.

For a deeper look at closing the gap between what you plan and what you execute, read our guide on weekly reviews. It covers the exact reflection process Sarah used every Sunday.

The Strategic Initiatives That Changed Everything

Sarah's OKR required her to lead two cross-functional strategic initiatives. These were the most visible proof points for her promotion case. Here is what she shipped.

Initiative 1: Customer Lifecycle Revenue Program

Sarah noticed that her team spent 80% of its budget on acquisition and almost nothing on retention and expansion. She proposed a customer lifecycle marketing program designed to increase revenue from existing customers.

What she did:

• Assembled a cross-functional team with product marketing, customer success, and data analytics
• Built a segmented email program targeting customers at three lifecycle stages
• Created an upsell campaign tied to product usage triggers
• Ran the program for 12 weeks with weekly performance reviews

Results:

• 18% increase in customer expansion revenue over the 12-week pilot
• 23% improvement in email engagement rates compared to batch-and-blast campaigns
• Executive team approved expanding the program company-wide

Initiative 2: Competitive Intelligence System

Sarah's second initiative addressed a gap she had identified through her daily reading habit. The company had no systematic way to track competitor moves, pricing changes, or market shifts.

What she did:

• Designed a competitor monitoring framework with automated alerts
• Created a monthly competitive brief distributed to the executive team
• Trained two team members to maintain the system independently

Results:

• The executive team cited the competitive briefs in three strategic decisions during the pilot
• Sales team reported using the briefs in 31% of their enterprise deals
• Her VP asked her to present the system at the quarterly board meeting

Both initiatives demonstrated exactly what her VP had asked for: strategic ownership, cross-functional leadership, and measurable business impact.

Month 8: The Promotion Conversation

Sarah did not wait for her annual review. In Month 8, she scheduled a dedicated conversation with her VP and came prepared with a one-page summary of her progress:

Objective: Earn promotion to VP of Marketing

She also shared her time tracking data showing how she had shifted from reactive to strategic work:

Her VP approved the promotion that week. In his recommendation to the CEO, he wrote: "Sarah has undergone a visible strategic transformation over the past two quarters. She has moved from strong operational execution to genuine strategic leadership. The customer lifecycle program alone justifies the promotion, but her overall growth in executive presence and team development makes this a clear decision."

Sarah later said the one-page summary took her 20 minutes to create because she had been tracking everything in Beyond Time for eight months. The data was already there. She just had to compile it.

What Sarah Would Do Differently

Eight months of structured goal pursuit taught Sarah lessons she wishes she had learned earlier:

Start tracking time immediately. She waited until Month 2 to begin tracking. If she had started in Month 1, she would have had data sooner and could have made changes faster. Even one week of time data is enough to identify your biggest time leaks.

Have the career conversation earlier. Sarah spent two years avoiding the "what do I need to do to get promoted" conversation with her VP. It took 30 minutes and gave her everything she needed to build her OKR. Do not wait.

Do not try to change everything at once. Sarah made three changes in Month 2-3 (email batching, meeting audit, time blocks) and three habits in Month 4-5. She did not try to overhaul her entire life in Week 1. Small, sequential changes compound. Research on the compound effect of daily improvements supports this approach.

Use data in conversations with leadership. Sarah's time tracking data and initiative metrics made her promotion case objective. She was not asking her VP to "feel" like she was ready. She was showing him numbers.

Build the system before you need it. By Month 8, Sarah's habits, time tracking, and OKR tracking were running smoothly. She could focus on execution rather than building the system itself. Start your system now, even if your promotion timeline is 12 months away.

The Full Timeline: Sarah's 8-Month Promotion Journey

Here is the complete picture of Sarah's transformation, month by month:

The transformation was not dramatic in any single week. It was the accumulation of hundreds of small, intentional decisions tracked and measured over eight months.

How to Apply Sarah's Framework to Your Career

Sarah's story is specific to marketing leadership, but the framework applies to any career promotion goal. Here is how to adapt it:

Step 1: Define Your Promotion OKR

Ask your manager directly: "What would I need to demonstrate to be considered for [target role]?" Use their answer to build your Key Results. If you are unsure how to structure this, the OKR generator can help you draft your first objective.

Step 2: Track Your Time for Two Weeks

Do not change anything. Just track. You need a baseline before you can improve. Most professionals are shocked by how much time goes to reactive work.

Step 3: Make Three Changes

Pick the three highest-impact changes based on your time data. For most people, these will involve email management, meeting reduction, and protecting blocks for deep or strategic work.

Step 4: Build 2-3 Habits Linked to Key Results

Every habit should connect to a specific Key Result. If you cannot explain the connection in one sentence, the habit is not strategic enough.

Step 5: Review Weekly, Adjust Monthly

Use a weekly review to check your progress against milestones. Adjust your plan monthly based on what is and is not working.

Step 6: Build Your Case With Data

Do not wait for your annual review. Track your progress continuously and present it when you are ready. Numbers are more persuasive than narratives.

If you are still figuring out what your career direction should be, start with our career roadmap planner to map out your options before setting OKRs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to see results with a career OKR system?

Sarah saw her first measurable improvements in Month 2-3, when time tracking data allowed her to reclaim 10+ hours per week from reactive work. Meaningful career outcomes -- like shipping strategic initiatives and getting leadership visibility -- took 5-6 months. The full promotion took 8 months. Most professionals should plan for a 6-12 month timeline depending on the gap between their current role and target role.

Do I need my manager's buy-in to use this approach?

Not formally, but Sarah's approach worked partly because she asked her VP what promotion-ready looked like. That conversation aligned her OKRs with actual decision criteria. You do not need your manager's permission to set career goals, track time, or build habits. But involving them in defining success criteria dramatically increases your odds of success. Read more about aligning goals with your manager.

What if I do not know what role I want next?

Start with a time audit and self-assessment before setting career OKRs. Understanding where your time goes and what energizes you can clarify your direction. Our guide on setting career goals when you are uncertain walks through this process step by step.

How much time does this system require each week?

Sarah spent approximately 2-3 hours per week on system maintenance: 30 minutes of daily reading (built into her morning routine), 30 minutes of Sunday 1-on-1 prep, and 30 minutes of weekly review. The time tracking itself takes minimal effort once it becomes a habit -- just a few taps to log what you are working on. The system saves far more time than it costs by eliminating low-value work.

Is this approach only for corporate careers?

No. The OKR framework works for freelancers, entrepreneurs, academics, and anyone with a professional growth goal. The specific Key Results would differ -- a freelancer might focus on revenue milestones and client acquisition rather than executive presentations -- but the structure of setting measurable outcomes, tracking time, and building connected habits applies universally.

What if my promotion depends on factors I cannot control?

Sarah's promotion ultimately required her VP's approval and the CEO's sign-off. She could not control those decisions. What she could control was building an undeniable case. By the time she had the promotion conversation, her data and results made the decision easy. Focus on the inputs you control (your OKRs, habits, and time allocation) and let the outputs follow.

Can I use Beyond Time for team career development, not just my own?

Yes. Sarah used a similar framework for the two direct reports she developed as part of KR3. She helped each of them set their own career OKRs and tracked their progress in her weekly 1-on-1s. Many managers use Beyond Time to model good goal-setting practices for their teams.

Free Tools to Help You Plan Your Career

Start building your promotion plan today with these free tools:

• OKR Generator -- Generate structured career OKRs based on your target role and current position. Get measurable Key Results you can start tracking immediately.
• Career Roadmap Planner -- Map out your career trajectory and identify the skills, experiences, and milestones you need for your next role.

Both tools are free and require no account. Use them to draft your first career OKR, then bring it into Beyond Time to track your progress over time.

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