Photo by Alec Favale on Unsplash
“Think Days” can bring your life and business to the next level
The daily grind, I bet you’re familiar with it — you’re heads down, executing your daily tasks with your team, trying to be as productive as possible.
The problem with the daily grind is that you can get shit done but without making any more money. Despite the long hours, you may discover you’re not bringing in any new customers or the current customers aren’t buying more from you. On the surface, things may seem to be going well, but deep down, you start to realize something is off.
When this happens — and it happens to all of us — it’s time to hit pause on the daily grind and take a “Think Day.”
How to have successful Think Days
Think Days are days when all you’re doing is writing down any idea that comes to mind. You’d be surprised how many unfinished thoughts you have in your mind when you don’t stop to think on a broader scale.
Why Think Day?
One word: clarity. When you feel like everything isn’t running perfectly anymore, it’s time for a Think Day. When you think everything is running super smoothly, it’s also a good time for Think Day. If your company is about to raise capital or has a bigger than usual growth, it’s likely a good time for a Think Day.
The reality is, you shouldn’t wait for a reason to do it. You can always use more clarity on your life and business. I’d argue that Think Days should be “habitual” to some degree. Do it once a month, for example. Bill Gates, for instance, takes a Think Week every year.
Learn from the best and make clarity a top priority in your life.
How to prepare for a Think Day
For a successful Think Day, here’s the preparation you need:
Plan a day where you will get zero distractions;
Turn off all notifications on all your devices;
Don’t read or reply to any messages;
Go in a different environment than your usual one; and
Bring material to take notes. Don’t underestimate what you’ll need.
What to do on Think Day
The goal is to do anything that forces you to think deeper. I personally just sit at a desk or table and jot notes down in a notebook while doing some research on the internet.
In my last Think Day alone, I wrote 50+ pages of notes! I wanted clarity on three aspects of my life:
One of my companies — Forest Co;
Another one of my companies: Power Level Studios; and
My life in general.
Ultimately, this is quite personal, but here’s a framework I’ve used with success:
List down all your purposes for doing a Think Day.
List down the top three takeaways you want to get from Think Day (spend a good amount of time on this one).
Write down the whole list of things you plan on reflecting on today. Organize these in buckets using the Eisenhower Matrix.
Write tons of notes.
Once you’re done, list the key insights you got from it.
Add these insights to a list of action items to Start Doing, Continue Doing, or Stop Doing.
Assign a specific due date for each of them.
Schedule your next Think Day.
I’ve created a template you can get here. It’s entirely free and you don’t need to give me your email. 😃
The guiding principle behind Think Day comes from Peter Drucker, the father of business management.
There’s nothing so useless as doing efficiently something that should not have been done at all.— Peter Drucker
You and I — all of us — will always have a tendency to slip into focusing on the wrong things. We make weekly and monthly plans, but the simple truth is, they’re not enough. Think Days can help you regain the clarity you need to focus on the right things.
So do yourself a favor and have yourself a Think Day!
You can do this!
Check out my deeply actionable Course on 10 Skills to Improve Your Learning in 10 days.