The New Advantage of Focus Time

At a Glance:

• Is your stress driving poor decisions?

• The new advantage of deep thinking 

• How to create space in your life 

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

-- Blaise Pascal

As a CEO, I would often wake up in the middle of the night feeling like everything was broken and I had to take action: fire the team, sell the company, change directions. Anything to alleviate the pain. I now have around three calls per week with wild-eyed CEOs in the same position. 

The pressure to survive, when your validation as a human is on the line, is a shot of adrenaline through a broken heart. 

The problem is, I usually made the wrong call when it was laced with urgency and a fear of the underlying emotion. 

We need time, space, and emotional openness to find the right path. For organizations, this kind of focus time is about to become critical. 

The New Role of Humans 

Since WW2, we saw the rise of “knowledge workers,” Peter Drucker's term for tech jobs. Since then, work has become about moving information around with increasingly intelligent tools.

Now, those tools are taking over the job entirely. So what’s left?  

We must be technology and data-literate, but also skilled in critical thinking, creativity, diversity, collaboration, emotional intelligence, and adaptability. Humans will orchestrate the work, build relationships, and create ideas, while the bots will keep the trains running on time. 

We need to focus.

A Rare Skill

In his engaging 2016 book, Deep Work, author Cal Newport said, “The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.”

Sadly, these skills are in short supply. According to research, in 2004, the average attention span on any screen was about 2.5 minutes. By 2012, this decreased to 75 seconds, now approximately 47 seconds. 

Perhaps that changes when those digital assistants start looking out for us: “Are you getting enough sleep? Is it time for a walk? Want to meditate before the 2 pm budget meeting?” In the meantime, companies must regain their collective brain power.

Game-changing moves must always come from what Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, calls "System 2" thinking, the deeper, more nuanced understanding that gets drowned out by the noise of daily operations.

Signs You Need More Stillness

• You're cycling through multiple strategies, but it’s not working

• Your team is confused about direction

• Decisions are burdened by anxiety 

• Your intuition is being drowned out by your worried brain 

• You are copying competitors 

How to Create Stillness

• Schedule "white space” on your calendar. Two hours of contemplation can create ten hours of free time by seeing through the noise. 

• Move your body; walking meetings, exercise, and other sensory activities that get you out of your head. 

• Spend time with people who operate outside of the distraction machine and can help you reground. Be inspired by them.

• Limit noisy input—news, social media, and advice—for a set period. I’ve given up news for two years now and it’s been glorious. 

• Have a space for it. I now write in a renovated closet with no tech save for a $150 laptop that doesn’t know who I am.

• Train your team. It’s about to become a source of great advantage for those who know how. 

The irony is that stillness leads to faster progress. You prioritize better, make smarter decisions, execute faster, build the allegiance of your team, and can hopefully remember why you’re on this planet.

Love,

Dave

Have you changed through stillness? Or struggle to slow down? Hit reply - I'd love to hear your story.

Thanks for reading. If you know someone who needs permission to slow down before their next big move, please share this newsletter.