Chad Silverstein advises high-performing leaders—many of whom are constantly "on"—to deliberately schedule unproductive margin time. He argues that slowing down and creating reflective space enables leaders to assess significance, repair or stop habits, and make strategic adjustments they can’t see while in the daily grind.
Chapters
Everyone's wired a little different and some people can't turn it off. Some people need help and a little bit of fire to turn it on. So most of the leaders in the build to lead community, they don't know how to turn it off. They're constantly on the go, on the move, thinking distracted and being able to slow down and being able to, you know, just be with someone else or with yourself is not something that they're disciplined to do. And you have to be able to build that into your margin time. You have to be able to learn how to be unproductive because if you're constantly, always striving and you're always getting everything done and you're just checklist after checklist after checklist, one, it's no way to live. And two, you have to be able to take stock once in a while and sit back and find space that you can create for yourself to reflect and, you know, score up your significance and see how you're doing, make adjustments, you know, see where you might need to repair and. Or you need to start something new or stop something that you've been doing for a long time, whatever the case may be. You have to learn how to slow down and be unproductive so that you can actually create the space to be able to see things that you normally wouldn't see when you're in the daily grind. So create space in your calendar and your margin time on your, on your schedule and learn how to be a little bit more unproductive.