It’s a top goal for people who sign up for the Communications Director Mentoring Program and probably for most nonprofit communicators: How do I make time to be more strategic? How do I make time to plan? What they are really asking is, how do I make time to think?
Thinking, problem-solving, and strategizing are called deep work. They go hand in hand with finding more peace at work.
Here’s my suggested approach to making time to think: Consider how you’ll do that annually, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily. What you do at each of these intervals will be different, but they will all get you closer to feeling like you do, in fact, have time to think, plan, and problem-solve regularly.
This is not unlike our suggested agendas for weekly, monthly, and quarterly editorial meetings.
Annual Time to Think
Most organizations reserve time once a year for annual work planning. Unfortunately, it’s often a challenge for the communications team to develop their work plans until they know what the programmatic staff are doing. So, it may be that your annual time to think needs to come after everyone else’s on the calendar.
But regardless of when it happens, this is a great time to think deeply about the strategic role of communications within your organization. Where is marketing support required for mission success? Where is it simply nice to have? What are the big communications objectives you are trying to reach? What’s the why of your work for the coming year?
Try to set aside several days for annual thinking.
Quarterly Time to Think
Once a quarter, give yourself time to consider the big picture. What have you accomplished in the previous 90 days, and what are the top priorities for the next 90 days? What trends are you seeing at work? Should these trends be supported or prevented from continuing? This is really about recentering yourself on your work and making sure your energy is going into the right places.
Try to set aside a full morning or afternoon for your quarterly thinking time. If you need to include others in these conversations, you might need a whole day.
Monthly Time to Think
Once a month, look at your editorial calendar and your to-do list for the next 4-6 weeks. Can you put your priorities in order, one, two, three, etc.? This is a great time to think about what you need to be successful. Do you need to meet with certain people? Do you need to set or reaffirm deadlines with others? Clarify any processes for how the work will get done?
Do you need to block off bigger chunks of time for deep work on specific projects, especially those requiring more creativity? Blocking those out now is also a good idea.
Give yourself an hour or two per month to do this work.
Weekly Time to Think
Some people like to do this at the end of the week (Friday), and others prefer the beginning of the week (Monday). But give yourself 15-30 minutes each week to set your course for the next several days. This is where you can adjust your monthly priorities based on what’s actually happening in your organization.
Daily Time to Think
Finally, give yourself at least five minutes at the start of your day to set your intentions. You might also check in with yourself mid-day to see if you need a course correction. At the end of the day, simply review where you are.
Reserving Time to Think
Calendar or time blocking is one way to approach this. You literally block the times on your calendar at each of these intervals and do your best to keep that time sacred on your calendar. You do not let yourself or others schedule over that thinking time.
Calendar blocking is a great start, especially for blocks longer than an hour or two. But it has limitations.
Stuff comes up. People need you. The time you need doesn’t magically match up with the time you blocked. You may find yourself too tired or distracted during the time you reserved actually to accomplish any deep work.
Instead of blocking minutes or hours, some people work better by half-day or day-long blocking, where each larger chunk of time has a theme. That theme could be thinking time. You don’t have to spend the whole afternoon or day on it, but you could, if you got on a roll.
Another approach is to treat “time to think” as a high-priority activity on your to-list. It’s less about reserving a specific time block and more about saying to yourself, I must do this, and it must be done this week. Don’t treat it like an afterthought that you will get to when you can. Force it to the top of the to-do list.
Also consider the tools you use for your thinking time. I personally find that this work is best done with a paper notebook and pen. All of the rest of my work, including writing this blog post, is done online with my hands on a keyboard. I use paper to reinforce that I am not just doing the same old tasks but actually setting a different kind of time aside for thinking.
Similarly, you may decide the place is important. Maybe you do your best thinking alone while walking. Instead of thinking of it as time-blocking, you need to consider physically placing yourself in the right spot at the right times.
No matter how you go about it, you have to create habits that give you the space and time to think. Being consistent is more important than how long you block on your calendar.
