In the hurly burly life of a manager, we often spend our time doing, not thinking.

However if you are serious about becoming a better manager, it is vital that you set aside some time for thinking and reflection – otherwise there is little chance that you will be able to learn and improve on your performance.

Here are some tips to help you grab back your thinking time, without having to sacrifice time for activity.

Thinking in relaxation time

Rather than setting out to think, set out to relax, and often the answers to what is troubling you, a brilliant idea for improving customer service or something that you didn’t know you were looking for will come to you.

Studies of how the human unconscious works show that when we relax, our conscious mind is better able to tap into the unconscious, and we can actively notice what has passed us by.

Do not try to think – just give yourself time to relax and enjoy some time for yourself

• Take a deep bath, with no distractions, no reading, maybe some music, put the answering machine on, switch off the mobile.
• Go for a long walk and concentrate on what you see, the different shapes of the pebbles on the beach, the colour of the trees. Count something completely irrelevant (the number of newsagents vs pubs, how many times you have to swerve to avoid the dog poo, whatever.)
• Buy a relaxation tape and listen to it once a week – it will help you to focus on relaxing and shutting out all the distractions
• Pamper yourself with an hour to yourself in the bathroom – give yourself a facial, a pedicure, something that isn’t in your daily routine (real men do these thing too these days by the way)
• Go to bed early one day a week, and relax listening to some music or a relaxation tape. Focus on relaxing, without aiming to go to sleep (although it’s okay if you do.) Getting enough sleep will help you to feel more active in the morning, and the active relaxation will help you mind wander in different directions, some of which will perhaps be fruitful and some of which won’t.
• Watch a funny film or TV show – laughing is excellent exercise for your insides, helps you relax and lets your mind let go of the things that are troubling you.

If you find that you can’t relax because you’re still worrying about work, or your personal life, don’t worry. Just think through what you need to think through as if it is someone else’s problem, and allow yourself to gradually let go of the problem. Some people visualise this as the problem floating away, or going down the plug hole.

Active thinking

It’s useful to set aside some time for structured thinking. Structured thinking can be used for considering:

• Priorities
• long term goals
• planning the week ahead
• influencing plans
• team dynamics

These are some tips for practical ways of allocating time for structured thinking which does not impinge on the time that you need to do the things that officially make up your job.

• Travel time – If you commute to or from work, use this time to plan your day at the beginning of the day, and at the end of the day to reflect on what you’ve learnt that day. If you go by train or bus, use a notebook, diary or personal organiser to do this, if you go by car, try talking out loud to yourself (eg “and at 11.30 I’m going to drop by Mr Anderson’s office and find out what he thinks about the new project”) or using a Dictaphone or the memo function on your mobile.
  
• If you have to travel to meetings, use this time in the same way to consider how the team is working at the moment (eg, why did Jack refuse that new assignment, what were his reasons for doing that?)

Conclusion.

There are lots of little intervals in the day when you’re not doing anything in particular (waiting for the kettle to boil, on the toilet, walking upstairs to a meeting.) Get in the habit of using this time to think constructively about what’s going on in your world.