During a hectic workday, it’s easy to feel like you’re simply spinning your wheels. As your to-do list continues to grow, carving out time for focused work can become increasingly challenging, let alone finding time to brainstorm a bit. Still, career coaches say highly productive people always block off one specific hour every day to silence all the noise around them.
This critical hour is often called the “proactive strategy hour,” and it’s one of those time-blocking techniques that can help you reclaim a small portion of your day.
To better understand the benefits of a proactive strategy hour, Parade chatted with two career coaches and asked them to explain the difference between reactive versus proactive work. We also asked them to describe some of the many ways you can spend this blocked out time to reap the most benefits.
During our discussions, we were curious to know if career coaches have any calendar-blocking strategies to help you stay sane when your schedule is chaotic—whether at your job or in your personal life. Luckily, they share several time management skills for professionals who might be wondering how to prevent burnout at work.
If you’ve ever been curious to know more about the habits of highly productive people, you might just be tempted to emulate them after reading these tips from the pros.
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The Secret Hour: Why Coaches Recommend the ‘Proactive Strategy Hour’
If you’ve never heard of the proactive strategy hour before, it’s pretty straightforward.
“The proactive strategy hour is a block of time that is protected and dedicated to brainstorming, strategizing, problem solving or thinking, rather than reacting to the items that have already landed on your plate through instant messaging, your inbox, phone calls and any other form of communication,” Loren Margolis, an executive coach and a contributing author in Executive Coaching: Perspectives Across the Field, tells Parade. “I like to call it ‘strategic thinking time.'”
She shares that the topic of a proactive strategy hour comes up often in her executive coaching sessions.
“The leaders with whom I work are pulled in so many directions—answering questions, putting out fires, attending meetings—that long-term planning and strategic thinking suffers,” she states. “They work too much in the weeds. When your strategic thinking suffers, so does your organization’s competitive edge.”
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The Psychology of ‘Reactive’ vs. ‘Proactive’ Work
When you log into your email first thing in the morning, you jump right into reactive mode and start addressing everything that requires your immediate attention. Margolis says reactive work is “driven by others,” with examples including text messages, phone calls, emails and requests from team members.
“Unfortunately, reactive work tends to get rewarded more than strategy work because it is visible,” Dr. Heather Maietta, a coach for career professionals, explains. “We see people attend meetings, answer messages and emails, put out fires, handle daily crises. Also, it is easier to feel productive completing reactive work since there’s a sense of immediate gratification.”
On the other hand, proactive work is “driven by your judgment about what truly matters,” per Margolis.
“The main difference is who sets the agenda. We are reactive when we answer an unplanned phone call. We are proactive when we plan and use thinking time,” she shares.
Strategy work doesn’t always have immediate output, as Dr. Maietta notes, but “has the biggest long-term impact.”
That’s because the strategy hour gives you time to channel your peak cognitive energy to achieve your own goals.
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How To Implement the ‘Strategy Hour’ in a Busy Schedule
When you feel like you’re drowning in work, it’s easy to make excuses for why you don’t have time to focus on forward-thinking matters. But the career coaches we spoke with say there are a few simple ways to incorporate a strategy hour into a busy schedule.
1. Set it in stone in your calendar
If you’re ready to commit to a daily strategy hour, make it a nonnegotiable in your calendar.
“Literally place it as a repeating spot on your calendar with a reminder so you and others are aware of it,” Margolis says.
2. Tell your colleagues how important it is
If you don’t explain how a strategy hour fuels your productivity, your teammates have no way of understanding how it inevitably benefits them and the organization at large. And more often than not, they’re likely to interrupt you during your quiet time.
“Some could see it as office hours where they can knock on your door and ask you questions, but it’s not,” Margolis says. “So, you need to clearly share that it’s uninterrupted time.”
3. Find the ideal spot to get your best work done
Where you physically spend your strategy hour can influence how much brainstorming you get done. If you’re working in an area where you’re bound to be interrupted during your strategy hour, find a spot where distractions are minimal.
“Environment might also be dictated by the type of work you want to complete,” Dr. Maietta notes. “For example, I need a quiet space to write my weekly newsletter, but I can complete planning work at a coffee shop. If I am in problem-solving mode, a walk is ideal.”
4. Plan ahead
Going into a strategy hour blind is never a good way to make the most of your one hour of focus time.
“You won’t use that time or work at your highest level if you have nothing planned. So, plan the business questions that you’ll answer, the problem that you’ll solve, the idea that you’ll brainstorm around,” Margolis says. “Deliberately give yourself structure so this time serves you best. You can’t rely on willpower alone. You must have something planned.”
5. Strategically select the best time on your calendar
Dr. Maietta, who likes to refer to strategy hours as “tiger time,” says there’s no one-size-fits-all time for focus.
“Tiger time should be scheduled when your brain does its best work,” she tells Parade. “For some people, this is at the start of the day. Others work better midday, and some people work best at night.”
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Multitasking vs. Time Blocking: What the Data Says
Dr. Maietta describes time blocking as “a method of creating focused attention.”
“So whether you call it strategy hour, white space or tiger time, you’re making a commitment on your calendar to perform deeper work,” she says.
On the other hand, multitasking (aka task switching) is “counterproductive to time blocking.”
“Every switch of task requires the brain to reconfigure goals and rules, creating measurable switching costs,” the career coach shares.
Overall, she says multitasking “has its place in our work but should be minimized.”
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Scripts for Defending Your Time When Your Boss Asks for a Meeting
You may manage your own calendar, but when your boss decides they want to host a meeting during your daily strategy hour, things can get a bit awkward. You may think you only have two options—agree to the meeting or push back—but Dr. Maietta says it’s important to reframe the way you think about this conundrum.
“I do not think the goal is to convince your boss to respect your boundaries. It is to demonstrate that protecting uninterrupted time benefits the work itself,” she states. “Pitch to your supervisor that you’ve found that when you have one uninterrupted hour each day, you make better decisions, complete complex work faster and reduce the amount of rework. Mention that you’d like to keep that block protected whenever possible.”
She adds that it’s important to tell your boss that you do better work with this setup; therefore, the organization reaps greater rewards.
Margolis also suggests reframing the conversation to say you’re taking time for “risk reduction” and explaining how this “will benefit the department and your organization.”
Of course, flexibility is also important, so be prepared to make compromises when necessary.
“If your strategy hour is daily at 9 a.m., and every Monday there is a standing meeting at 9 a.m., maybe your strategy hour is moved up or down an hour, or it is relocated to the afternoon,” Dr. Maietta states. “The point is not to impose rigid constraints that are impossible to adhere to. Instead, commit to one hour per day of focused time. That hour might need to float from time to time, but it always exists nonetheless.”
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Sources:
- Dr. Heather Maietta is a coach for career professionals.
- Loren Margolis is an executive coach and a contributing author in Executive Coaching: Perspectives Across the Field.
