What if you could just spend some time ‘thinking’. No emails. No projects. No staff to check up on. No kids to pick up from school. Just a designated period of time to do nothing but ‘think’.
You can. The good thing about ‘thinking’ is that it just happens to be the easiest thing to actually do and one of the most productive ways to spend your time.
The problem, however, with finding some ‘thinking time’ is that it’s one of the last things we ever think about getting around to doing. Before social media, before computers and telephones and television, ‘thinking’ was a common pastime. Now it’s thought of as a waste of time and its real benefits are significantly underrated.
That’s why I believe a period of ‘thinking time’ should be put in the diary, if not once a day than at least once a week. It should be scheduled as an appointment like any other, providing an uninterrupted period to reflect on new ideas, upcoming challenges, sources of inspiration or even a plan to get organised for the week ahead.
It should not be a time to catch up on writing, getting through emails or paying your bills — they’re all ‘to do’ items that need to happen during other periods of your day.
And it’s certainly not a time to catch up on social media. If social media forms part of your downtime or a means to build your ‘personal brand’ then find a time to schedule it somewhere else in the diary.
Thinking time is for thinking. No technology. No phones. No distractions. No people. Just a pause in your day or week to be alone with your own thoughts.
It’s a time to consider the future, rather than catch up on the past or be in the present. It could involve planning a way forward from a previous mistake or failure but should not involve dwelling on what’s gone wrong or trying to catch up on what you haven’t yet got done. ‘Thinking’ time could help you schedule plans to get through a difficult workload — it could even see you crossing to-do items off that you realise don’t actually need to be done.
Thinking time could just provide the space to come up with a brilliant solution to a difficult challenge, a new project or a great idea that could provide the catalyst for a turning point in your career.
Thinking time could even allow you the space to reevaluate your career and how you’re tracking against your goals on a regular basis. It could be the time to ‘check in’ with yourself, to see how you’re feeling about your work/life balance, to decide if the work you’re doing now, or plan to do in the future, is what you really want.
And the best part about scheduling ‘thinking time’ is that it can be done in a variety of different spaces. It doesn’t require an office, a PC or even sensible attire. It can occur outdoors or in, and while enjoying a relaxing activity at same time — such as a walk, lie in the sun, a blank stare out the window or over a cup of coffee.
There’s a reason why some of the world’s best business minds and entrepreneurs, including Richard Branson and Bill Gates, achieve brilliance. They know that you can’t ‘think big’ if you don’t think at all.
Make an appointment with yourself and see what a little ‘thinking time’ can do for you.