A Minute to Think

• A strategic pause means taking a moment – or longer – to think, plan, create or just breathe.
• People need to take strategic pauses because overload has become prevalent.
• Pauses can benefit performance by allowing for cognitive recovery.
• Four attitudinal culprits work against taking time to pause.
• Free up time for strategic pauses by asking four questions – and apply “the Wedge.”

• To apply white space thinking to digital messaging, reduce the number of times you check your email, the amount you send, and improve your composition skills.
• Applying strategic pauses to communications can benefit teams.
• To improve meetings, do less inviting and accepting, and take strategic pauses both between meetings and during them.
• Use white space at home, too, to ensure your time, and your children’s, is well spent.

“If only activity and productivity were the same – but they are not.”

“We need permission to pause – and to do so during business hours, not on our own time like a public school teacher going broke to buy their own clay and markers.”

3mind-sets drive toward constant busyness:

“Insatiability” – People never feel they’ve done enough – .

“Conformity” – People unconsciously mirror their colleagues’ behaviors, resulting in feedback loops.

“Waste” – Tolerance of wasted time and effort places huge burdens on workers, who pay the price in decreased wellness and happiness. Meanwhile, businesses suffer in terms of employee engagement and retention.

“Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens both worked four to five hours a day and on that schedule wrote 19 and 21 books, respectively.”

Four “time thieves” lead people to overload themselves – The thieves have a positive side, but they create dysfunction when taken to extremes:

• Drive transforms into overdrive – The push to do more can cause people to load themselves with work beyond their capacity.
• Commitment to excellence turns into perfectionism –
• The pursuit of information becomes overload – 
• Dedication to activity turns into frenzy – The need to feel busy occurs when people conflate activity with productivity.

“There are some thoughts you just can’t have while hustling down a hallway.”