Most people I know sabotage their career by being to efficient with their time. They fill up their daily schedule with meetings and phone calls, thinking that they are being highly productive. The result is a week of conversations, with little time left to “work on work.”
A recent IBM survey of over 1000 CEO’s found that creativity was the top skill required for leadership success. This makes sense, as innovation is the prescription for dealing with a highly disruptive business environment. Technology, media, globalization all come together to put creative demands on leaders and manager everywhere.
The problem is, creative thinking requires a lot of white space on your calendar. It’s not something you can schedule or squeeze in on a long flight or a Sunday afternoon. Filmmaker David Lynch believes that “It takes four hours to get one hour of creative work done.” By that he means that we must enter into a problem consideration mode for extended periods of time to induce free association…which leads to innovative business solutions.
But if your calendar is full of every call request and meeting invitation that comes your way, you won’t have any time to think. This is why I block out two hours of unscheduled time daily to work on my projects, research problems, white board solutions and passively think creatively while doing low mental-requirement tasks. It’s in these gaps where our breakthroughs occur.
As a leader, you aren’t paid to meet or talk to others. You are paid to think. Einstein, Edison and Jobs put their feet up on their desk or took long walks to actively consider solutions – and that’s where their eureka moments happened.
Make every meeting and calendar item fight for its life. Pick the ones that are truly business drivers. Limit your “getting to know you” lunches and out-of-office meetings to one a week and make them count! If you find enough time during your most fruitful mental states (M-F days), you’ll achieve the creative breakthroughs you need to make your mark.
