Friday evening you look at your calendar for the next week before heading out for a well-deserved couple of days off. When the next week actually begins, that calendar changes completely. Why?

Because others are controlling your agenda.

Do you see things start to pile up in the late afternoon, with requests coming in as you are trying to wrap up the day and get out? Do you tackle those requests immediately? For that matter, do you find yourself stopping what you are doing whenever someone asks you to do something else? Do you simply accept changes to meetings without requesting to stay on the original plan? If so, then other folks will be deciding how you spend your time, not you.

Lots of people will claim that something is critical, or an emergency. Let me tell you something: I have been in two wars, and I have a pretty good idea of what an emergency REALLY is. As long as I don’t have a sniper shooting into my workspace or mortars falling on my home, I figure any other situation is pretty manageable. If you want to retake control of your agenda, you need to help other people redefine what an “emergency” really is.

It’s hard to exercise leadership and grow your organization when you are constantly being distracted by others. Whether the problem is coming from clients or from internal sources, if you are going to be effective and use your time strategically then you need to try to control your agenda as best you can. If you get buried by details you will never see beyond them.

Let’s be clear: there are plenty of situations that, right now, are out of your control. Your company’s fiscal year schedule isn’t something you can change tomorrow. If one of your employees drops the ball and something you are contractually obligated to provide is in danger of not being ready, you need to fix it, and now. People go on vacation and maternity leave, employees quit and new ones get hired, clients threaten to sever their relationship unless something is done, policies are in place that mandate certain requirements. To some extent, your day-to-day job is controlled by others.

BUT, as we look at the things outside our control, we are reminded there are things within our control as well, and we should take the steps we can to make them work for us. Try to organize yourself as best you can; after all, you cannot blame others for messing up your plans if you don’t actually do any planning first. Try setting aside specific time on that schedule for different tasks, like returning calls, returning emails, dealing with urgent requests a couple times a day, and maybe block off some time when you put aside the day-to-day stuff and look beyond tomorrow toward something more strategic. If you need to have regular meetings during the week, set them at a consistent time, send out at least a short agenda beforehand, and then stick to it as best you can. You probably will not be able to stick to this exactly, but if you think it’s impossible to plan your day, ask yourself: what’s stopping you, and how can you fix it?

Very often we have to react quickly because somebody did not follow through on something, or we assumed something was finished that wasn’t. Rather than waiting to find out something did not get done, have a way to make sure it did. It doesn’t have to be involved as keeping a formal dashboard, it could be as simple as having your team members each send you a short note at the end of the day (or end of the week, whatever works) saying what got done and what is still in progress.

Don’t just accept every change to a meeting that comes into your Outlook Calendar. It’s ok to go back to people and ask why they are changing; after all, they really should have a good reason. At first you may need to just deal with it and go, but after a while people will get the hint that whatever they set with you, they should stick to it.

There are plenty of books on organizing yourself and tools you can buy to help you do it, but none of that means anything if you do not exert control over those things you can control. Stand up and take charge of your life…as much of it as you can, at least.

Though there are things you cannot control today, maybe you can control them tomorrow (well, perhaps not tomorrow, but someday!). Leaders are often fenced in by company policies (both formal and informal) that do more harm than good, but remember, these are not laws; they are policies. Policies can be changed, but you need to make a good business case for doing so. If you have a good reason for needing a change, then go for it. When it comes to personal attitudes within your firm and in relationships with your clients and customers — for example, people having the idea that everything should be figured out as it happens rather than planning ahead — the best way to change those attitudes is by changing behaviors and showing a better result by doing it the new way than by the old (in this example, you can show the benefits of planning by actually planning). It may take some extra effort at first, because you still have to follow the old attitudes while trying to introduce new behaviors, but that extra effort can pay off in the form of better working relationships. It takes time, but you can change people more by example than by just telling them “this is how it’s going to be.” In short, just because you cannot control something today doesn’t mean it can never change.

You may think it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get control of your agenda. But consider this: it often seems pretty easy for someone else to control what you do. How is it that they can do that if you can’t?