“Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?” — Winnie the Pooh
The current health situation, as horrible as it is, presents us with a great gift of time, an opportunity to do the things we never think we have the time to do. Yes, you can clean out closets, you can label your spices and alphabetize them, you can do some good reading that you’ve been meaning to get around to. You can also do some good things – like pack up those “don’t fit me anymore” clothes, the extra blankets that you couldn’t resist at 40% off and put them on the porch for donation pick-up.
If you are in business, this is a time for you, for your staff, to do that thinking and planning that is always so hard to find the time to do at the office.
How many times have you shut your door to get away from distractions in the office? Turned off the phone so you can’t be disturbed? Shut down the laptop to avoid the dinging of email or your office in-messaging system? Only to be interrupted by a knock on the door telling you that someone is looking for you, someone has been calling you or emailing you. Someone needs you in a meeting down the hall. It never seems to end.
Our “thinking” time and “planning” time is always the casualty. And then we turn to longer hours, working at home on a project, maybe even working on the weekends when we should be refreshing ourselves.
Now that so many of us are working remotely from our homes, “sheltered in place” or on “lockdown” where we are – we should use this time for self-reflection and some good thinking and planning work.
Take a page from Sir Isaac Newton, who, during the Great Plague of London, was sent home from Cambridge – the “social distancing” of 1665. A time when one quarter of the London population died from the plague. Sir Isaac used this “remote” time during a health crisis to think, plan, muse – and achieve. We all know Sir Isaac Newton for discovering gravity but he was a pivotal philosopher on so much more and attributes much of it to the time he was able to reset.
If you are a leader or manager – ask yourself:
- What do my people need from me during this time?
- What can I do for them?
- How can I help them?
This takes some quiet and meaningful thinking. It also needs planning. You can’t do it all and you can’t give everyone everything. However, you can set a goal and plan to get to that goal.
Start today. Take the time. Set a goal or goals. Make a plan.
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
