“Every leader should routinely keep a substantial portion of his or her time—I would say as much as 50 percent—unscheduled. … Only when you have substantial unscheduled time will you have the space to reflect on what you are doing, learn from experience, and recover from your inevitable mistakes. Leaders without such free time end up tackling issues only when there is an immediate or visible problem. Managers’ typical response to my argument about free time is, ‘That’s all well and good, but there are things I have to do.’ Yet we waste so much time in unproductive activity—it takes an enormous effort on the part of the leader to keep free time for the truly important things.”
– Dov Frohman
The above quote is very powerful. Entrepreneurs, in particular, get so involved in “the chase” that they seldom take time to access things. The things that don’t get addressed include long term strategy, relationships, personal health & well being, and employee development. The consequences are obvious.
My long time friend Jim Kelton of Altius Technologies blocks out every Friday afternoon to plan, think, and dream of what he might do better for his business and for himself. He takes that time off-site from his work so that he can be uninterrupted.
How about you? Isn’t it time to schedule some free time?
John Bradley Jackson
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I try to take off at least 1 morning or 1 full day during the week from client work.
I use it to meetup with people,
do invoices,
socialize on twitter (which im doing now),
Take notes (make plans)
Take Wife out for coffee
Not all of those each time but different things a different times.
Or sometimes I sleep
Speaking of free time, we should meetup for coffee again.
Loren,
Yes, that is a great example of good use of unscheduled time.
JJ