People say the most productive day in the year is the one just before you go on vacation. You fly around checking off tasks that MUST be completed. You make determination on several projects that have bottle-necked in your in-box waiting for your okay, or give the decisive answer to your team, split over a direction. You leave late, clothes in disarray, work stuffed into your backpack, with your laptop in tow…and off you go. Whew! Now that was productive.
Well, maybe…you certainly got a lot of unfinished tasks completed. And completion is excellent. Even if it isn’t perfect, moving forward will most always trump standing still.
I argue that real productivity happens when you get back from a vacation, or a time-out, where you are thinking of other stuff, or not thinking at all. The more the brain has been studied, the more we find that creativity comes through other channels than our execution function which drives task completion. As a Leader, you have more to do than check off completed projects. You need to come up with the vision and strategy of your company in an ever changing globally competitive world. That doesn’t happen when your mind is focused on today’s tasks.
If this speaks to you, take a vacation and program in some weekly down time. Whether it is a spiritual practice like reading a sacred text, meditating, playing guitar, ballroom dancing, hiking, learning Portuguese – find something else to do regularly that requires your complete attention and renews you. If you access your email while you do it – it doesn’t count.