If you’re a high functioning, productive leader, you’re busy. You have commitments, responsibilities and regular “to-dos” that keep your calendar booked and your inbox full. There’s really no way around that, as far as I can tell. I also know that there are few things pre-programmed into your calendar that are going to take your business forward in radical leaps and bounds. Those tasks – the game changing ones – only enter your life when you make time for them… when you make time to step out of the trees and look at the forest as a whole, so to speak.
In Making it All Work, David Allen suggests a formula for staying focused on the forest. The formula involves regular, structured hours away from the “to-dos” of the business so you can focus on the plan – where you’re going, and what it’s going to take to get there. In my own business, I’ve found the monthly 1/2 day to be extremely valuable. Taking half a Friday, once a month, to get out of the office and – armed with some key data – hang out in a coffee shop, working through the business. It takes diligence to keep this time from being swallowed by to-dos. Be diligent. Maintain your priorities and get off the hamster wheel, if only once a month.
