As a thought leader, what level of importance would you put on making time for strategic thinking during the day? It’s very easy to put our deep thinking time on the back burner because of meetings and busy work. That’s never been more true than today with endless pings, rings, and distractions. However, productivity experts have been assessing this problem for decades.
Productivity experts refer to this busy work as staccato mode, where we spend our time reacting to everything that’s happening around us. This includes being back and forth in meetings, checking and responding to emails and calls, producing last-minute reports, and putting out little fires here and there.
It’s hard to really be strategic when you’re always in staccato mode. We’ll never be as productive as we’re meant to be until we become intentional about dedicating ourselves to strategic deep thinking time or better referred to as legato time.
What is Legato Time?
As leaders, you’re paid to think strategically. Your responsibilities as a thought leader are too important for you to just show up. You have to plan and put careful thought into everything that you do. If not, you’ll spend most of your day in reactive mode. That’s called the staccato mode, and it doesn’t get us very far as leaders. In fact, it can feel like we’re constantly spinning our wheels and not moving forward at all.
Most professionals complain that they spend most of their day in back-to-back meetings. That’s because when you spend all day in meetings, you lack the time to spend on strategic thinking. When we spend more time being strategic, we’re able to be intentional about how we’re scheduling our day (including what we’re saying no to). That means, it’s up to us to create the time we need to be the thought leaders we’re supposed to be — to drive the big thinking forward.
Productivity Expert Tips to Blocking and Sticking to Strategic Thinking Time
The one thing we know is that our legato time won’t happen unless we make it happen. How can we possibly do that? The same way we do everything else — schedule it on your calendar! We have to be intentional about creating the time and space we need to be productive thought leaders.
We also have to go beyond just scheduling it because even though it’s on the calendar, it will take second place to anything else that needs our attention in the workplace. We’ll easily move it back or come back to it later if it means going to another meeting, or responding to something that just came up that needs our immediate attention.
Here are three tips that will help you stick to your legato aka strategic thinking time once you’ve scheduled it:
1. Do it every day and at the same time every day.
You want to build a habit around your legato time. That should be something that your brain expects to happen daily. So, plan to put this time on your calendar every day. Then, make it the same time every day. Try to find the most logical time when your brainpower is at its peak — and protect that time.
2. Make sure you’re blocking off enough time.
How much time will you need to feel productive with your legato time? One hour? Two hours? However much time it is, intentionally use that time for legato work, and nothing else. Allow a reasonable amount of time, so you’re still available to your team and customers as you need to be.
3. Have a plan for your legato time.
Don’t use legato time trying to decide what to do during the legato time. This wastes precious planning time. Know two days ahead - the Plan tomorrow +2 strategy is recommended by many productivity experts as well as time management coaches - how you intend to spend your time. That will eliminate last-minute interruptions because you now have something specific to focus on. In the absence of a concrete alternative, we will always take a distraction. But in the presence of a concrete alternative, we make smarter choices!
Get a Productivity Expert
It may be time for you to partner with a productivity expert to help develop a strategy in this area. There is nothing more powerful than accountability and 1:1 coaching can provide that to you to help take back your time and move your productivity forward! Learn more here.