When do you have time to think?
“No time, and I really need to get back to work.”
How do you get your bearings if you’re always busy?
“Job’s like a merry-go-round. Get on every morning. Get off when it stops in the evening. Doesn’t take bearings, just Dramamine and coffee.”
Would you like time to think?
“You’re joking, of course. I put out fires all day. Which one do I walk away from so “I” can “think”?
If you had time to think, how would you use it?
“I’d catch up. Get organized. Start on performance reviews, due in three weeks. Don’t know how I’ll squeeze them in. Got three enterprise stories lined up in the queue. One’s been there a week, one three days, one, uh, three weeks. Eyeballed a couple of them. Need work. Have to have some time to figure out…”
Excuse me. Did you say “have to have some time”?
“You tricked me.”
I wasn’t trying to trick you. Just wanted you to discover for yourself that you need time to think. Can you think of one way you could find this valuable time?
“Sure, Saturday morning.”
That’s possible, if you limit yourself. First try to find weekday time. What are your work hours? Is there time before or after your shift that could be time “off the merry-go-round”?
“Makes the day long, but since the fires don’t start breaking out till 2 and I come in at 1, I could spend that hour on just this stack of stuff I have to work through.”
I like the way you are thinking. Would you work at your desk?
“Probably not a good idea. People will just interrupt me. I’d have to find a quiet spot.”
Can you catch up, as well as get organized, if you did that several days over the next two weeks?
“I’m so far behind that I doubt that I could take care of everything, but I’d take a chunk out of it. It would make me feel like I had accomplished something.”
It does feel good when you clear things off your desk. It sounds like you would still have a few things hanging. And there would probably be a few new things emerge. A couple more advance stories show up.
“I’m feeling like the merry-go-round’s starting up again.”
Well, none of us will ever be caught up. Maybe your work would feel a little less like a merry-go-round if you could reach the levers and, when you needed time to think, you could slow or stop the engine. What if you took a whole day away every six weeks or so?
“What? No one would go for that. People would be ticked at me because I was off doing my thing, and they were having to pick up the slack for me.”
Actually, you need only one person to make that work. Look around. What’s the editor at a nearby desk going through? You think that person needs thinking time away? Could you give each other a break for a day? And fill your boss in that you have worked this out and that you will back each other up?
“Yeah, sure. Sue, over there. She and I commiserate a lot about having too little time to do everything. And just the other day the boss said she’d like to give me a little project, but I seem too busy. Maybe I could get things in order and she’d see that I was trying to be smart about how I work. Maybe she’d like this idea, because I’d be available. Do you think that’s possible?
Well, you have to talk with the boss. I can tell you that I once invited a group of busy editors to take time off periodically to think. I didn’t want reports back on what they did. I trusted them to use the time as they saw fit. I was actually more concerned that the people leading the newsroom were too wedded to daily deadlines. How could they see the big picture, the trends, the problems that could be resolved with a little fresh brain-power? Some got it. Some didn’t.
I always admired those who got it. I could see it in their work. They were more on top of what was going on. And they tended to come in with new and creative ideas. They were really doing their whole job. They were active in their daily operation and they were looking ahead as leaders should. I’m convinced that part of their freshness came from spending fewer of their weekend and night hours on business.
How are you feeling about your work and getting it under control? Do you think you can find time to think?
“Hm-m-m. I need to think about that. Just kidding. I’m going to go talk to my friend now about a day for each of us. And, one of the things I want to do is find a class or do some reading on organizing your work. I bet I can find ways to keep all the live stuff in better order. And find little chunks of time to keep me going between the days I get away.
