How To Create CEO Time And What To Do With It

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Where do you get your best ideas? 

Are you one of those people who hop in the shower and wishes that you had one of those waterproof notebooks that you could write down all your ideas before you forget them? 

Or is it when your head hits the pillow and you're just about to doze off?

Or, even worse, do you wake up at 3:00 AM with the idea that's going to solve all of your problems only to realize in the morning he can't remember the best idea you ever had?

For me, it's when I go for a walk. Ideas flood in so fast that I have to stop walking so that I can open my phone and download it all into my notes app before I forget.

While it feels amazing to get a download of ideas, especially if one of them is a solution to something you've really been struggling with for a while, it's actually a sign that something's really wrong in the business.

Getting downloads of ideas like that usually means there's not enough white space in my diary. I'm not allowing myself enough time to think between all the things I need to do. all the fires I need to fight and all the clients I need to serve. 

White space or thinking time is usually the first thing we sacrifice when something else seems more important and everything else seems more important because playing around with your Sharpies on a sketchpad or doodling on your whiteboard, or just staring into space and thinking feels unproductive in comparison.

But how can we responsibly steer the business when we're making decisions in five-minute increments in a fight or flight slightly panicked mode? 

Not having thinking time is irresponsible, especially when you consider the volume of information that's hurled at us on a daily basis and the constantly changing business environment. Time to process, think, and mentally prepare is vital to your role as CEO of your business.

That sounds amazing, but where do I find the time?

At first, finding the time to think can feel like quite a challenge when you've already got so much on your plate but just an hour a week is going to make a difference to your business. 

To find an hour a week and you simply need to find 12 minutes a day from Monday to Friday. Most of us can recapture those 12 minutes a day simply by not scrolling social media.

I’ve found the time, now what?

1 – The Brain Dump

Because we're so unaccustomed to sitting and thinking that we often veer back into doing instead of thinking. 

So to disengaged from your work tasks. Write down anything that comes to your mind. Give yourself five minutes to clear out as much space and mental chatter as you can.

Don't worry about:

• categorizing it
• making it pretty
• Whether it’s business or personal

2 – Review the Week

Review the past week asking yourself

• what's gone well
• what hasn't gone so well

3 – Plan for next week

Consider :

• What's on deck?
• What do you want to focus on? 
• What's your priority?

4 – Thinking time

Once you've done that review, there are usually a couple of things that need some more thinking time. Maybe something didn't go well and you want to think about why and what you could do differently.  Maybe you've got something due next week and you need some thinking time on that.

Once you've started, you can just let your brain go where it wants to go, think about what it wants to think about, have ideas, and find solutions. 

The important thing here is that it's about thinking not doing. 

5 – Wrap up

At the end of that hour, wrap up by adding new tasks to the to-do list, content ideas to the content tool, and ideas to the someday maybe list.

If you don't have to put anything anywhere, it doesn't mean this thinking hour was in any way, a “failure”, unproductive or a waste of time. You've given your brain time and space to think, and it just probably needs a bit more to find the idea or solution that you were looking for.

Embed this process into your business as your bare minimum of thinking time and remember this meeting with yourself, this thinking time, this white space is as important as your time spent with a client because this is where the real CEO level work happens.

Want a step-by-step walkthrough?

If you haven't done this before and you want some help, use my online review tool to guide you through this review process with a set of questions for each step. There's no opt-in required and at the end, you can enter your email to send yourself your answers. I will not see that email or those answers connected to you in any way.