“What’s your favourite day of the week?”
I’m sitting in an Indian restaurant, sipping red wine with my boss.
We’re nearing the end of the bottle, talking life and business.
I’m about to surprise myself and maybe him, too.
“It’s Sunday.”
I pause briefly. Why did I say Sunday?
It’s not an answer my boss would probably appreciate, but those few glasses of Merlot have loosened my self-control enough to be honest.
“Yes, Sunday is my favourite day.”
My boss nods, awaiting an answer.
I explain:
“Sundays are a quiet day. A peaceful day. It’s a day away from the noise and chaos of working in the office. It’s a day when I get to think. I walk and I read. But mostly I sit with my reflections and think about the choices and issues I have to face.
…I find clarity that no other day of the week brings me.”
What was obvious in the moment became more evident on reflection.
Work always presented challenges.
The largest by far was trying to understand the flaws in our repair network management system. Quite simply, what we thought our capacity was and how the work in progress grew seemed unrelated. Service levels fell through the floor as a result.
It was a Sunday, in a moment of reflecting on what the data was trying to say, that I found the clarity to see that the capacity numbers were a fallacy.
Ever since that conversation, I’ve hung onto my Sundays with even more zest.
I get it, in a way I believe few others do, that thinking is good for you, for your life and your business.
Peter Thiel (more than once) posed a question that’s tough to answer.
“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
For me, it’s this:
We rely too much on action and not enough on thought.
Don’t get me wrong, action is good. It’s essential for completing the decision loop, accessing feedback and making progress. Without action, every thought is just an intention.
But thinking, be it deep, undistracted, and intentional, brings clarity to confusion, insight within noise, and direction before speed.
The epitome of this comes from Abraham Lincoln.
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. ”
What he is saying is that good preparation makes action highly effective. In the same way, taking time to think through the puzzle makes solving it easier.
When you take time to think, you awaken your critical thinking mind.
You seek to reframe your thoughts by changing the words you use to prompt different thinking.
George Mack offered this on reframing recently:
His perspective isn’t wrong.
But my experience says you can’t reframe if you can’t think. Reframing isn’t about action, it’s about changing the way you think.
That’s what I realised with my previous challenge.
It wasn’t a problem, it was a puzzle. One where I needed to question the conventional logic we used to guide our actions around the work in progress. The solution to the puzzle only came from having time to think deeply about the problem.
It gave me the mental capacity to reframe my assumptions.
But to unlock that ability, you need time to think.
What I know is that my Sundays give me clarity, purpose, and direction. They empower my actions in work and life, helping me be effective and efficient.
So, I have one simple question for you:
When do you make time to think?
Appreciate your attention,
Darren
P.S.
Whilst I love my thinking time on a Sunday, I know there is a different way to think slowly.
I’ve yet to be able to try this.
But I so want to.
https://www.decision-mastery.com/articles/thinking-slowly
