I’m well known for filling pretty much every available moment with a task. Downtime tends to look to me like an opportunity to add something else to the list.
My daughter has introduced me to needlepoint, which turns out to be a very good activity for someone with that particular habit. It requires both hands and enough concentration that multitasking is pretty much off the table.
She is much more talented at it than I am. For my birthday, she recently created a series of designs illustrating the twelve days of Christmas, which I absolutely loved.
My immediate response? She could turn this into a business and sell her designs.
She laughed. Apparently, she and her boyfriend had predicted that was exactly what I would say.
Clearly, I have some work to do on enjoying something without immediately identifying its commercial potential!
That instinct to spot opportunities has served me well in business. But I’m beginning to appreciate how quickly I can fill any space I create, often before I’ve even had a chance to enjoy it.
It’s something worth thinking about as leaders too.
We delegate a responsibility, then immediately take on another. We clear an afternoon, then fill it with meetings. We build a team capable of carrying more, then find something else that needs our attention.
Sometimes that’s exactly what growth requires. But if every bit of capacity we create is immediately consumed, we can end up with a bigger business and the same overflowing diary.
Making room is part of building a business that gives us choices. What we do with that room deserves as much thought as how we create it.
For me, needlepoint is a small opportunity to practise giving one thing my attention, without trying to squeeze something else into the same moment.
And perhaps to appreciate my daughter’s beautiful work before suggesting a business plan.
This week, ask yourself: if you could make a little room in your diary, what would you want that space to be for?
Then consider what you could stop, simplify or hand over to make it happen.
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