The Enemy of Creativity And the Achilles Heel Of Leadership
I’m probably more busy right now than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m married with two young children. I’m busy leading a church that doesn’t have a lot of stability. I’m going back to school and doing lots of work for that.
And here’s what I’ve found happens as a result: creativity is swallowed up in the busyness. There’s not much room left to think, and as a result creativity dies. Busyness is the enemy and the Achilles heel of leadership.
That is not good.
That’s why I was encouraged recently when I read this post by Michael Hyatt on creating more “head time.” He says, “Most of us don’t spend enough time thinking. We are so busy doing that we have, I fear, almost forgotten how to think. Yet it is our thinking, more than any other single activity, that influences our outcomes.”
What does he recommend to that end?
1. Eliminate everything that is not crucial to your role
2. Automate everything that is repetitive
3. Delegate everything else that someone else could do
Most of us have heard all of these before, but when you’re especially busy, they take on a whole new meaning. And as I’ve been reviewing things that I can delegate or repetitive actions that I can automate, I’ve actually been coming up with a decent list that I plan on implementing soon.
If you’re too busy as a leader, you’re going to stay in a reactive position. You’ll just stay busy putting out a bunch of little fires. When you have time to be creative, though, is when you think of proactive solutions that can quantum leap you forward. So don’t feel guilty for making room to think and be creative (I’m talking to myself as well on this).
It just may be the most important thing you ever do.
So what about you? How do you react when you’re super-busy? How do you create “head time”?
[image by Anant N S]
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Totally agreed. However, plenty of “head time” and ideas can also generate an overwhelmingly long list of tasks, which must also be filtered, prioritized, strategized, and then implemented. So while I agree with you… perhaps a follow up blog about what to do with that creative time, and then how to make it useful. Hey, I mean after all, if you’re going to give us this much, you’ve got to give us more… another “to-do” for your list.
Hahaha…you’re funny…and I like the process you mention: filtering, prioritizing, strategizing, etc. Very nice. For me the head time is about what’s coming ahead and what you can do about them. For example, I try to devote one day a week to think and work on future projects and future vision stuff. I have a million of them to do, but if I’m always busy working on all the regular stuff I’ll never really get ahead. When i do my schedule for the week, I funnel certain tasks into the purpose I set for each day. I write about those principles below in those two posts.
http://www.modernekklesia.com/2010/03/how-to-maximize-your-schedule.html
http://www.modernekklesia.com/2010/03/the-case-for-finishing-early.html
No… I agree… we need to create margins in order to be creative. The irony is that by creating a schedule and planning ahead, it actually gives us more time to be creative. This is something that seemed counterintuitive to me years ago… and yet I’m still constantly working to try and keep ahead of myself so I don’t default into reactionary mode. I hate when leaders lead that way.
I’ve read the two blogs you’ve included here… but it’s good to promote your work… hey, keep it up and someday you’ll arrive at the level of being a marketing terrorist… have you been getting mentored by N. Searcy? LOL …
Hahaha…not totally sure what a marketing terrorist is…but it doesn’t sound good. NS is a machine for sure. Way to much for me, though. It comes across as being all about making money sometimes.