One of the big challenges of our time is to look away from our screens for a moment and to shift our focus to thinking about the bigger picture, the strategy, the important project we’re never getting to. We are so caught up in the fire-fighting and getting through the to-do list that we reach the end of the day feeling exhausted from all the running, but without having shifted the dial on the big stuff.
Clients often come to me with a desire to introduce a new habit around creating space for reflection and deeper thinking in their work. They recognize that they are filling their days meetings and emails, keeping very busy but not quite on the right thing.
We are creatures of habit who settle into familiar patterns that we have developed for efficiency or ease. We perform the same activities in the same place every day (eat breakfast at the kitchen table, brush our teeth in the bathroom, grab a coffee from the coffee shop, listen to a podcast on our way to the office, etc…). We all have variations on where we perform every-day tasks.
So what are our habits around performing our work activities? We sit at our computer, either at home, in an office or other workplace, and respond to emails, attend virtual meetings, or sit in a meeting room with one or several colleagues to discuss a specific topic.
Coming back to my clients who want to do more big-picture thinking, when I ask them where they might do this thinking well, it is never at their desk or in a meeting room. Yet we associate activities related to work with these places, so this is where the shift in habit needs to happen. We need to identify the physical space where we do this type of deep thinking best, and intentionally seek out this place.
This isn’t necessarily easy. I am much more creative outside, but even though I know this, I still need to put in a lot of energy to pull myself away from the computer. My mind is telling me a very strong story that work is done at a desk, so I have to be very intentional about how and where I spend my time.
Here are some tips for how to create some thinking space:
- first of all, identify what conditions are the best for you to do this thinking
- if you need a thinking partner, consider who that might be
- is there a particular time of the day when your mind is the freest for this type of thinking? Is it first thing in the morning? Is it at the end of the day when you know there are no more meetings?
- where is a good place for you to do this?
- what else do you need for creative or deep thinking? Could you benefit from an accountability buddy, someone to report back to in an informal way?
Experiment, try things out, your answers to these questions might not be the same every time.
I find going outdoors shifts my perspective and the bigger picture comes to me more easily. And as a bonus, I get to see all the beauty that natures has to offer when I leave the desk behind for a while (for example these lovely blossoms!).
So where do you do your best thinking and under what conditions?
If you want some help in creating space for more deep thinking, or you want an accountability buddy, then get in touch and let’s talk.
