Summer has a habit of changing the rhythm of business. For some, things naturally become a little quieter as clients head off on holiday and projects pause until September. For others, the workload stays much the same, but the shape of the week changes.
Meetings move, colleagues are away and, every now and then, an unexpected gap appears in the diary.
I’ve noticed that most of us react in exactly the same way. We fill it.
LinkedIn poll
If someone cancelled your next meeting, what would you instinctively do with that time?
The answers were exactly what you’d expect: catch up on work, clear the inbox, grab a coffee or spend a bit of time thinking.
There wasn’t a right or wrong answer, but it reminded me how quickly we all make these little decisions without really thinking about them.
There’s always another email to reply to, admin that’s been waiting patiently or a task we’ve been meaning to get around to.
Before long, the gap has disappeared and we’re back into the usual pace of the day.
There’s nothing wrong with that sometimes. It’s exactly what needs to happen. But does every gap really need filling?
One thing I’ve noticed from working with business owners is how good we are at protecting everyone else’s time.
Client meetings stay in the diary, project deadlines are carefully planned and holidays are booked well in advance because we know they matter.
Yet the one thing we rarely protect is time to simply step back and think.
This is time that is protected from replying to emails or booking in meetings.
A question worth asking
When was the last time you deliberately set aside an hour to look at your business without an agenda?
Not because there was a problem to solve, but because you wanted the space to reflect on where things were heading.
For many of us, it’s probably been longer than we’d like to admit.
Some of the best conversations I’ve had with clients this year haven’t happened because we were trying to solve something quickly.
They’ve happened because we didn’t rush, and we kept asking questions, explored different ideas and, somewhere along the way, uncovered something new.
This summer, if a meeting gets cancelled or your diary suddenly looks a little lighter, perhaps don’t rush to fill the space straight away.
Go for a walk. Grab a notebook. Sit somewhere different, not to force a breakthrough, but just give yourself enough space to notice what’s really happening in your business.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do isn’t completing another task.
It’s creating the clarity to make a better decision about what comes next.
Need greater clarity around where your business is heading?
ATL Solutions can help you step back, make sense of the moving parts and identify the priorities that will have the greatest impact.