How Do CEOs Make Time to Think?
They book it. Time to think almost never turns up in a full calendar on its own.
By Fay Chapple · 4 min readThe CEOs who get real thinking time put it in the calendar before anything else can land there: a gap between meetings to breathe, and a short walk every day. If it isn’t booked, it doesn’t happen. A busy week will take every hour you leave open.
What kills thinking time
I see the same pattern with leaders over and over. They overbook themselves. Meetings run back to back without even a breathing space between them, and at the end of the day they sit there wondering why they didn’t get anything done.
The work happened. The thinking didn’t, because there was nowhere for it to go. Every real decision that day got squeezed into the walk from one meeting room to the next.
Where I made one of my biggest calls
Years ago I had to decide whether to take on a particular retail space. I didn’t make that call at a desk or around a boardroom table. I was walking downtown, right in the middle of the city, and that’s where I decided.
Being outside and moving did something sitting still never had. I still work through hard decisions that way, and it’s how I work with leaders on The Thinking Walk.
If it isn’t in the calendar, the week will take it.
The first thing I ask a leader to change
Two things, and neither is complicated. Schedule time between your meetings to breathe. Then schedule a little time to go for a walk, each and every day.
Both sound small. Both have to go into the calendar like any other appointment, or the day swallows them.
What happens when I skip it
I’m not immune to this. If I don’t give myself the time and the space to think for thirty minutes or an hour each day, I just keep working. I’ll work fourteen hours solid, because I never scheduled any time for myself.
The last time I had a full hour with nothing in it, I picked up a book and read. I hadn’t done that in ages. It felt like a treat, which tells you something about how rarely it happens.
Try it next week
Open your calendar for next week. Put one gap between your back to back meetings each day, and one short walk. Give both your own name and guard them the way you would a client meeting. If you want a quick read on how much room you have right now, the Headroom Check takes about two minutes.
And if there is one decision that keeps circling, bring it on a Thinking Walk. Toronto ravine, downtown, the AGO in winter, or by phone from wherever you are.
