Making Time to Think: Strategies to Help You Become More Strategic
How do you carve out time for long-term thinking and strategizing when your schedule is packed? We have ideas .... and exercises to help you grow your strategic capacity.
“Fighting fires every day isn’t sustainable.”
This was the senior director’s conclusion as he explained his difficulty with making time to think strategically. His team size had grown from 50 to 100 through acquisitions, and now his days were spent weighing in on one crisis after another, with barely a chance to grab lunch.
“I’m thinking about getting up at 4 am, just so I can have time to think,” he said.
He’s not the only one I hear outlining how difficult it can be to make time for long-term project planning and strategic thinking. While your circumstances may not be as extreme as this man’s, you’ve probably felt this way too.
When are you supposed to get anything done, if meetings are back-to-back, all day long? The day’s agenda becomes about juggling meetings while taking care of the most urgent needs.
Thinking about the future—who has time for that?
You do. At least you can, with a little delegation, some relentless prioritization, and a commitment to focused work.
Today we’re looking at the two questions my colleagues and I hear most often from exasperated clients who just want a few minutes in their day to think. Solutions are not one-size-fits-all, so I offer many ideas in hopes that some combination of options will resonate with you.
How do I make more time for strategic thinking?
Making time for focused thought can be challenging in a fast-moving, meeting-heavy organization. Here are some strategies to help you find time, and focus it.
Delegate: If you fail to delegate, you fail to develop. Delegation makes time in your calendar to take on bigger, more strategic tasks, which help you grow your career. Delegating projects to direct reports and colleagues helps build their experience and develop their capacity as well.
To identify projects you might delegate, ask yourself these questions:
What work do I do that is routine?
What part of my work is not challenging for me?
Is there work that I do not enjoy?
We often hesitate to delegate because we’re afraid of burdening others, or afraid to let go of tasks we know we excel at. But to develop others and yourself, you have to hand off some of the time-consuming tasks that, with some training and some trust, could be done by others.
Say no to new projects: If your dance card is still overflowing, grow your ability to say “no” to new work or projects. If the request is coming from someone you cannot say no to, ask for their help prioritizing the work already on your plate to make space for this new task.
These questions might help launch that conversation:
Is this a higher priority than ___?
What can we stop doing to make time for this?
Block time zealously: Perhaps you’ve had the experience of putting strategic thinking time on your calendar, only to have that time cannibalized for something that popped up unexpectedly.
Here’s a tip that helps if others have access to your calendar, and tend to take over your work blocks: Hold the time as a meeting, and call that meeting “executive strategy session” or other language that seems uninterruptible.
We are usually better at keeping commitments to other people than to ourselves, so consider scheduling strategic thinking time with someone else. Having a partner may help you honor the time.
Have a plan for your strategic thinking time: I used to hold time for strategic thinking on Friday afternoons, until I noticed a problem. I was tired by that point in the week, and tackling a nebulous task like “strategic planning” was too broad for my tired brain to take on.
Now, instead of commanding myself to “think strategically,” I plan more discreet strategic thinking tasks such as, research competitor programs, send five emails requesting referrals, or interview a colleague about her ideas in a specific area.
These discrete tasks are much more actionable. I know the next step, and even a tired brain can take a step forward.
How can I build my strategic thinking skill?
Now that you’ve got the time to think strategically, do you have the skill? These exercises can help you build your capacity and perhaps find an insight (or two) that can inform your future.
Crystal ball exercise: Imagine it’s 50 years from now; make 10 predictions about the future of your work in the year 2075. Now, do the same exercise focused on just 5 years from now. What might be true then, that’s not true now? If you knew your predictions would come true, what would you encourage your organization to do to prepare for the future?
Risk and scenario planning: To do this, you take a significant tool or system or initiative, something your organization relies on, and brainstorm all the possible ways it could break. Or all the possible ways it could adapt or change.
Once you have this list developed, review the list of risks and assign a probability to them. What seems most likely to happen? In future strategic thinking time blocks, develop a scenario for how to address the most probable risks.
Shop the competitors: Go look at how others in similar industries are doing work in your functional area. Then go look at industries that are wildly different. I’ve worked with libraries that have asked, what are Amazon or Netflix doing, that we could learn from?
Spot early signals: Set aside 15 minutes each week to track emerging trends in your industry or beyond. Ask: “What weak signals might become big shifts? What could this mean for us?” Share your insights with your team and invite others to add what they’re noticing.
Strategic thinkers notice change early. This builds a habit of scanning the horizon, not just reacting to today.
None of this is easy. If thinking strategically came naturally to most people, we’d avoid it less and do it more.
That thinking strategically requires so much discipline is precisely why it’s a differentiator. The ability to think across longer time horizons, and across divisions of an organization, to anticipate needs or risks and ready the team … that’s senior level capability. Which is exactly why, if you want your career to advance, it’s an essential place to designate your time.
What helps you make space in your day? And when you get the time, what practices build your strategic thinking capacity? Share your comments.
BONUS QUESTION
Ultimately, making time to think strategically is a habit. The go-to book on habit formation is James Clear’s Atomic Habits. Clear offers the following questions to help you form habits that require behavior change.
"Whenever you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself: How can I make it obvious? How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy? How can I make it satisfying?" —James Clear, Atomic Habits
Make thinking strategically obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying … and you’ll change your leadership.
Photo by cottonbro studio.
Love the crystal ball exercise!