Why Successful People Spend 10 Hours a Week Just Thinking
Warren
Buffett has spent 80% of his career thinking. Here's why.
Warren
Buffett, the CEO of the fourth largest company in the country, isn't as busy as
you are. By his own estimate, he has spent 80% of his career reading and
thinking.
"That's
what created [one of the] world's most successful business records in history.
He has a lot of time to think," Charlie Munger, Buffett's long-time business partner, has said of his
unusual approach to productivity.
For
most people, Buffett's wide-open schedule is totally counter-intuitive. It goes
against everything we think we know about what a leader does. Reading about the
Elon Musks and Jeff Immelts of the world leads us to assume that business
greatness means little sleep, and even less time with loved ones. Immelt, for
example, has worked 100 hours per week for his entire career.
Buffett's schedule may seem like an anomaly.
In reality, he's a trailblazer. Thanks in part to his example, over the past
few years, several high-profile CEOs have come out against the norm of constant
busyness. They argue that critical thinking time is essential in a complex,
rapidly-changing digital economy.
AOL
CEO Tim Armstrong, for instance, makes his executives spend 10% of
their day, or four hours per week, just thinking. Jeff
Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, schedules 2 hours of uninterrupted thinking time per
day. Jack Dorsey is a serial
wanderer. Bill Gates is famous for taking
a week off twice a year just to reflect
deeply without interruption.
I do
the same. At my $250 million company, O2E (Ordinary to Exceptional) Brands, which includes brands like 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, I set aside all of Monday for thinking. I believe that,
whatever your business type or size, you can and should make time for it too.
The Case For Thinking Time
"Give
me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the
axe."-Abraham Lincoln
Most people see leadership as a sport where
success is determined by hard work. Instead, I like to think of business as
being more like surgery.
My father was one of the top surgeons in
Canada, so when I was young I saw how surgeons aim to have maximum impact with
minimum intervention. Like Lincoln chopping down a tree, accomplishing this is
about careful planning. The actual surgery-the physical work-is only a small
part of the process.
I approach business the same way. The Mondays
I devote to thinking allow me to operate with surgical precision during the
rest of the week. Here's what I do during that day.
Step #1: Schedule the whole day in your
calendar
Are other people constantly taking your time
and dictating your priorities? If so, the first step to finding time to devote
to thinking is to take control of your calendar. Let people know that you won't
respond to emails or phone calls on a particular day, unless there's an
emergency.
Step #2: Do NOT go to your office
My best ideas come when I'm not in the
office, so I often spend the day wandering around Vancouver. I pick where to go
based on the type of thinking that I need to do. On a given Monday, I might go
through six coffee shops. I might walk in the forest, take a bike ride, hang
out on the beach, sit on a park bench, or even have a glass of wine. Whenever I
feel stuck, I move locations.
Step #3: Bring your journal
Writing is a powerful way to capture your
ideas and get them into an organized, actionable form. The key is not to censor
or judge yourself-just spill your thoughts onto paper without criticism or even
evaluation. There are many ways to do this. I'm a very visual person, so my
notebook is filled with pictures, arrows and words. Find what works best for
you.
Step #4: Reschedule or shorten meetings you
have later in the week
As I'm out of the office all Monday, my
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are usually spent in back-to-back meetings. I
set aside 15 minutes on Monday to review the meetings that are set up for the
week and compare them to my priorities. If a meeting isn't a high priority, I
will ask my assistant to either reschedule it or shorten it.
Step #5: Prune your to-do list for the week
Most of those meetings lead to action steps.
Over the course of the week, tasks pile up and my to-do list can become so long
that it's unrealistic for me to complete all of it. Rather than blindly
checking off items as they come up, I use my thinking day to review the list
and evaluate which ones are truly a priority. I ask myself: 'Should we really
action this?' Often, I find that what seemed important at first isn't anymore.
Step #6: Identify your top three outcomes for
the day
Besides planning your week to come and
reviewing your to-do list, set three goals for your thinking day and jot them
down. This will ensure you get the maximum impact from those open hours.
Step #7: Use powerful questions to encourage
deep thinking
You will also want to devote some of your
time to thinking deeply about your priorities and the direction of your
business. I find prompts are helpful for this. Here are some of my favorites:
·
Am I doing the right things with the right
people?
·
What's most important?
·
What am I good at?
·
What am I bad at?
·
How can I spend more time doing what I'm good
at?
·
How can I spend less time doing what I'm bad
at?
Alternatively, I'll write out a goal and
think about how I can strategically move toward it.
Step #8: Set aside time to solve your biggest
problems
As important as big-picture thinking is,
every business will need to solve shorter-term problems. A portion of your day
can also be spent investigating challenging issues and brainstorming ways to
push through them.
Step #9: Set aside time to think of new ideas
Reacting to problems is essential, but so is
proactively coming up with new ideas to better your business. Set aside some
time to brainstorm new ways of doing things, or new opportunities to explore.
Remember This
Don't be surprised if taking a whole day for
thinking feels like an indulgence at first it certainly did for me. I felt
guilty for taking walks in the park or sipping wine while others were in the
office. But now I can't imagine not doing it.
As CEO, I have realized I don't need to be
the first one in and the last one to leave, but I do need to be the most
impactful person in the office. And my 'Thinking Mondays' help me accomplish
that.
If
nothing else, remember this: Warren Buffett has built his whole calendar around
thinking. "You look at his schedule sometimes and there's a haircut.
Tuesday, haircut day," says his partner, Charlie Munger.
In this complex, rapidly-changing world, the
calendars of world-class CEOs will look more like Warren Buffett's and less
like Jeff Immelt's!
BY EMPACT
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