This critical hour is often called the "proactive strategy hour," and it's one of those time-blocking techniques that can help you reclaim a small portion of your day.
During our discussions, we were curious to know if career coaches have any calendar-blocking strategies to help you stay sane when your schedule is chaotic—whether at your job or in your personal life. Luckily, they share several time management skills for professionals who might be wondering how to prevent burnout at work.
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"The proactive strategy hour is a block of time that is protected and dedicated to brainstorming, strategizing, problem solving or thinking, rather than reacting to the items that have already landed on your plate through instant messaging, your inbox, phone calls and any other form of communication," Loren Margolis, an executive coach and a contributing author in Executive Coaching: Perspectives Across the Field, tells Parade. "I like to call it 'strategic thinking time.'"
"The leaders with whom I work are pulled in so many directions—answering questions, putting out fires, attending meetings—that long-term planning and strategic thinking suffers," she states. "They work too much in the weeds. When your strategic thinking suffers, so does your organization's competitive edge."
The Psychology of 'Reactive' vs. 'Proactive' Work
When you log into your email first thing in the morning, you jump right into reactive mode and start addressing everything that requires your immediate attention. Margolis says reactive work is "driven by others," with examples including text messages, phone calls, emails and requests from team members.
On the other hand, proactive work is "driven by your judgment about what truly matters," per Margolis.
Strategy work doesn’t always have immediate output, as Dr. Maietta notes, but "has the biggest long-term impact."
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If you're ready to commit to a daily strategy hour, make it a nonnegotiable in your calendar.
2. Tell your colleagues how important it is
If you don't explain how a strategy hour fuels your productivity, your teammates have no way of understanding how it inevitably benefits them and the organization at large. And more often than not, they're likely to interrupt you during your quiet time.
Where you physically spend your strategy hour can influence how much brainstorming you get done. If you're working in an area where you're bound to be interrupted during your strategy hour, find a spot where distractions are minimal.
4. Plan ahead
Going into a strategy hour blind is never a good way to make the most of your one hour of focus time.
5. Strategically select the best time on your calendar
Dr. Maietta, who likes to refer to strategy hours as "tiger time," says there's no one-size-fits-all time for focus.
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Multitasking vs. Time Blocking: What the Data Says
"So whether you call it strategy hour, white space or tiger time, you’re making a commitment on your calendar to perform deeper work," she says.
"Every switch of task requires the brain to reconfigure goals and rules, creating measurable switching costs," the career coach shares.
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"I do not think the goal is to convince your boss to respect your boundaries. It is to demonstrate that protecting uninterrupted time benefits the work itself," she states. "Pitch to your supervisor that you’ve found that when you have one uninterrupted hour each day, you make better decisions, complete complex work faster and reduce the amount of rework. Mention that you’d like to keep that block protected whenever possible."
Margolis also suggests reframing the conversation to say you're taking time for "risk reduction" and explaining how this "will benefit the department and your organization."
"If your strategy hour is daily at 9 a.m., and every Monday there is a standing meeting at 9 a.m., maybe your strategy hour is moved up or down an hour, or it is relocated to the afternoon," Dr. Maietta states. "The point is not to impose rigid constraints that are impossible to adhere to. Instead, commit to one hour per day of focused time. That hour might need to float from time to time, but it always exists nonetheless."
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Sources:
Dr. Heather Maietta is a coach for career professionals.Loren Margolis is an executive coach and a contributing author in Executive Coaching: Perspectives Across the Field.Hence then, the article about why highly productive people block off this one hour every day career coaches say was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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