Lessons learned from a Sabbatical

Yes, I am really fortunate to have a Board that understands the need to recharge one’s batteries. Not to mention that a sabbatical is a very low cost means of significant recognition. I recently came back from a six-week sabbatical.  This was not a sabbatical where I went to focus or study a particular topic.  It was a time to get away from the office, do what I wanted, and recharge my batteries.

It took plenty of planning and extra meetings to prepare for, however, once I left, I went 47 days without checking my e-mail. If it was not for listening to music, I would have gone the same 47 days without touching my cell phone.  

Through this exercise I have learned how to control my time instead of being controlled by all my to-dos.

I spent the two months before leaving carefully scrutinizing my e-mails, calendar and to-lists.  If I went more than a few weeks without reading things that were part of email marketing campaigns or newsletters, I unsubscribed (I continue to do this today). When setting appointments, I try to make as many of them as possible start a quarter after or before the top of the hour.  I find people are almost always on time and I spend less time waiting for others. I realized that I was often wasting up to 30 minutes a week waiting for other people (just six meetings a week with people running 5 minutes late). I have used various tools (Micrsoft, Teams, Planner, Task by Planner, To-do, and Teamworks)  in my planning so that my to-do list and calendar are integrated. Lastly, I attempt to leave every day with zero e-mails in my in-box. As I learned many years ago from reading The Hamster Revolution, I only check email three times a day.  I leave all email notifications off, so I am not treating email any more urgent than any other task.  When I read an email, I either handle it, schedule a time to handle it and file it in an appropriate sub-folder, or delete it.  There are numerous newsletters that I receive, 90 percent of which, I switched my choice to weekly digest instead of daily receipt. I block time on my calendar to read these weekly versions that I receive.  Being disciplined in this approach, as I was reminded of when going on my sabbatical, has allowed me to be much more intentional on using my time productively.

It also allows me the freedom to do things that I feel are important to be a good leader. I see too many leaders let what others deem urgent control their schedule.  As a leader I highly value networking and learning from my peers.  I make these activities a priority and seldom let my schedule or what someone else views as urgent conflict with my standing networking events.

My sabbatical reminded and taught me how to control my schedule instead of being controlled by my schedule. I am still as productive or more so than before I left, and I have a lot more time to focus on where my organization is going instead of what my organization is doing today.

My next experiment is the four-day work week. Stay tuned for an update.