We’re all hearing about how busy the world is these days. Time is at a premium, and calendars fill up weeks or months ahead. A not so recent book made a really big deal about how high-level leaders were chastised for going home at 5:00 p.m. This author mentions cover stories that her assistant had ready so that she could get out of the office, or come in late, so that she could be with her children. The expectation to make your work your life, especially at upper management levels, is permeating our culture. 

I love my work, so this wouldn’t be so terrible for me. As one of the lucky ones for whom work feels like play, going home at night to write a new chapter in my second book or prepare for a board meeting isn’t a sacrifice, it’s a joy. But looking at my calendar today at lunch, and realizing I only have one appointment on Monday, and that it’s an internal meeting (no suit required), was a bit of a shock. I am conditioned to be gunning down the day, all day, every week.

Do we, as leaders and managers, set the best example when we push ourselves too hard this way? Even if we love it ourselves, how does it look to our charges? I’m beginning to wonder about the perception, and would love to hear what you think as well.

If the perception of the people around us is that we are frantically trying to get it all done in less time than we really have, we are sending a long list of negative perceptions.

First, are we just that disorganized? Did we not realize when we were planning our day/week/month that we already had other things to do? Will our folks believe that we just can’t get a handle on our lives? Or, maybe that really is the problem. Perhaps we aren’t paying attention. But I don’t think that is it.

Or, are we unable to say “no” when asked to take on one more job, one more volunteer position, one more meeting? Do the people that work for us think that we are weak when it comes to refusal of additional duties, no matter who is asking? I don’t believe that is it either.

Maybe we feel like we have to set an example of filling every minute of every day so that our employees (or our bosses) will see that we are working just as hard as they do. That could be it, perhaps.

Or, we may feel we have to get as much done now as we possibly can, because life is short and good jobs are harder to come by, so we have to prove ourselves worthy to someone. Or we have to prove ourselves worthy to ourselves. That could be it too.

It’s probably some kind of combination of all of these things, along with the culture of speed I’ve talked about before. These things could all be symptomatic of something deeper. In this case, maybe we’ve simply forgotten the value of time to just think. Perhaps we feel some lack of control when we haven’t scheduled every minute. After all, the only thing we truly control is ourselves, meaning, our own time.

All this was triggered for me when I saw that empty day on the calendar. My immediate instinct was to fill the day. Then, I hesitated. What if I really had a whole day to work through my projects? By spending time researching some long term concepts, reading over the documentation, filling in the gaps in my knowledge about the issues, could it be that I’d get a more well-rounded answer or better long term results? Speed is good, and culturally we thrive on it. As a rule, making any decision is usually better than paralysis by analysis, even if our answers aren’t perfect or need tweaking later.

For bigger projects though, when critical decisions have to be made, is it possible we set a better example for our folks when we intentionally take time to think? Some time management experts even suggest that we go so far as to schedule time on our calendar to do just that, to think. That’s not our message here today, although it’s better than nothing. The point is to come at this from a new angle that will spark a new response in us.

Most of us have heard about quiet time, and how valuable it is to have uninterrupted time to work. You may have seen the articles at the CBS website or others about the studies that show our brains can’t really multi-task. Quiet time is great. But it’s still scheduled!

Having the flexibility of a day or two here and there to be spontaneous about which project you pick up allows your brain to feel the sense of play. Think about the last time you had a totally free Saturday. You slept in, then when you started your day you thought “What do I want to do today?” There is something liberating for all of us in that thought. Our creativity swells, and we have a little more spring in our step. So, too, our brain on a work day thinking “What do I want to do today?” creates an entirely different type of energy in us.  Consider planning a vacation, for example. Scheduling it is one thing, but packing in an activity for every minute won’t help you get any rest, and most people don’t think that it is as fun. 

That difference is that emotional trigger that occurs when we realize that we can do whatever we want, even if just for today. There is a rush that comes with improvisation and spontaneity.  Johns Hopkins University has studied the effects of improvisation in jazz musicians. For the rest of us, the fact that we get to choose the use of this unfettered block of time spontaneously (albeit within the confines of our job) also starts a different part of our brain. It awakens creativity.  

You can read Brain Rules or look up The Creativity Crisis or many other websites to learn about the benefits of lowering stress with play, how play makes us more creative and why we learn better when we aren’t bored. None of that is new, but we have usually applied it to education, or when in the workplace, we’ve structured the play, scheduled it, and forced it on our employees. Or we put in a pin ball machine or something to give employees a brain break from projects. These are all good, but also not exactly the same as the simplicity of a day without appointments.

The perception that you are at ease with an open day on your calendar may make some people uncomfortable! You may be chastised, or someone may joke that you must not have anything to do. Taking that day to improve the naming standards on your document files or reading a management text or just wandering around the office catching up with your team may feel obnoxiously wasteful. But don’t believe it. Those tasks all make you more productive later, when the clock ticks and you have to rush from one thing to the next your brain will be more limber. Allowing the refreshment is worth it.

So the next time you see that unplanned hole in the calendar, keep it open. Allow the adventure of not actually knowing what you will do next Tuesday or a week from Friday. Treasure that open spot, knowing that on that day, when you get to the office, you get to decide to do “whatever you want.”