Taking a day to work on the business instead of in the business can pay dividends.
Some years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Doug Greene, CEO and founder of New Hope Network, a natural products purveyor and convener of Natural Foods Expo. Every month Doug blocks off a day on his calendar to work on the business, rather than in the business.
Greene explained his unusual practice like this: “Every month I block off a day on my calendar. It’s what I don’t do that’s important. I turn off my phone and leave my laptop at home. No calls, no emails, no meetings. Instead, I’ll visit a nearby city, or I’ll go for a hike. I listen to my gut. And get clear on important decisions.”
Doug’s sense of the value of these disconnected but creatively productive days stuck with me. “If I hadn’t taken these Doug Days over the years, I’m confident we wouldn’t have enjoyed nearly the success we have had.”
Since meeting Doug, I’ve shared his practice with audiences around the world. I try to schedule a Doug Day at least twice a year. In every instance, I’ve come back reinvigorated. I found clarity on some aspect of my life and business that I needed to do some deep thinking on. And several of my colleagues, while at first skeptical, have fully committed to their Doug Days and are realizing the benefits.
Here are a few tips for planning your Doug Day:
1. Turn off your cell phone and get outside.
In a recent study at the University of California, San Diego showed that the mere presence of a cell phone in the room decreased brainpower. The closer the cell phone was to the participant, the less favorably they did on a test that gauged “available cognitive capacity,” a measure of how fully a person’s mind can focus on a particular task. So, step one to a Doug Day is to power off that phone and get outside.
2. Change your environment. Avoid getting creatively stuck.
This is key. By consciously getting out of the office or home office that you traditionally work in, you are already setting yourself up for success to think differently and you’re avoiding the doldrums of unproductivity. In an “Unleashing Creativity and Innovation” session I facilitated for an engineering firm, one participant commented, “If stuck, I’ll put the project aside, take a walk, visit a museum, or sleep on it. I often wake up with solutions. I keep paper and a pen next to my bed and in my car at all times.”
3. Take time to think about how you innovate.
Your Doug Day is a great time to introspect. When I coach leaders, I ask, “Where do you come up with ideas: in the shower? On the road? With your team? At conferences? The next question is: “How do you bring the ideas to life?” Keeping it simple, that’s the idea-to-reality process in a nutshell. Creativity is coming up with ideas. Innovation is bringing them to life. It’s solving problems you never faced before, it’s doing the research, and experimenting. It’s two steps back and one step forward and keeping at it. Innovation is something you’re already doing in your business and your personal life. Take time to think about how you come up with ideas and bring them to life.
4. Try Out New Environments for Your Doug Day.
I’ve done Doug Days in a wide variety of places from a small village in Japan to the Futurium Museum in Berlin, to hiking trails in Mammoth Lakes, California. I always feel reinvigorated with fresh ideas and solutions to problems that have been plaguing me at work. The trick is to keep it fresh and experience environments that awaken your senses and throw you new ideas.
I promise that taking a Doug Day will become a fixture in your calendar that you look forward to as well.