A bad myth rampant in our organizations is the myth that there is no set-up time to intellectual work.
We schedule meetings on disparate topics in one hour chunks back to back and somehow think we are going to get our best thinking.
Or, worse, we know we won’t get our best thinking but we “don’t have time for anything else.”
It takes a great deal of time to put yourself in the right frame of mind, and a great deal of time to come out of it and shift into the next task.
As we move from the end of 2012 to 2013, join me in an attempt to change a habit by planning longer spans of time to consider ideas. by pledging chunks of time to important tasks.
If we don’t, I worry we won’t do the deep thinking necessary to answer today and tomorrow’s most challenging questions.
Why not try?
I agree. I also find that the more I am forced to jump from one topic to another, the more grumpy I become.
H
It is a fundamental challenge… How much time is enough time? Well, I don’t know because it is complex. The proper amount of time will for us to think this through will only be apparant in hindsight. So we have to approximate how long it will take us to have productive thinking.
One hour chunks are the path of least resistance it seems.