Sometimes the Best Thing to Do Is Nothing

Last week, one of my clients told me what he enjoyed most from our coaching sessions: nothing. It caught me off guard until he explained that as a managing partner of a busy law firm, he almost never gets the opportunity to stop working for an hour and just focus on strategy. The compulsion to check email, to answer the phone, and to respond to the various heads that pop in and out of his door frame is all-consuming. It's unfathomable that he would disconnect for an hour to think about where his firm is heading, especially if there wasn't a meeting dedicated to it.

His comment got me thinking about the value of "doing nothing." Chances are, you rarely stop the momentum of a busy work day to simply think and plan. But it's one of the most effective uses of your time. Because in those moments when you quiet your mind and lift your head out of the weeds, you can focus on where all the "doing" is leading you. You can set a goal for the week, or craft a vision for your practice. You can direct some of your energy toward resolving your own issues instead of giving it all away to your clients.

I'm embarking on a new experiment and I invite you to try it as well. I'm scheduling one hour a week into my calendar for "quiet time." I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with it yet. I imagine I'll spend most of it evaluating and planning. I may even take the hour off and recharge my battery. But I'm turning off the phones and computers and I'm not doing any client work. It's my hour and it's not for sale. I know it will take some discipline to keep the appointment with myself, but I have a feeling that doing nothing once  a week will benefit me far more than another hour of hustle.

Authored by David Ackert