Quality time with your loved ones isn’t the only benefit of working away from the office.
In fact, I’ve found that one of the best things I can do to increase my productivity and to start knocking off those particularly pesky tasks on my to-do list is to get out of the office. A bit counterintuitive, yes, but true nonetheless. The office is a hive of productivity, and hives are noisy. Sometimes so noisy and hectic that it’s nearly impossible to sit down and see something all the way through, especially the problems and solutions that require a fair bit of focus. More often than not, there are just too many fires that need to be put out, too many meetings that need to be had, and too many phone calls that need to be answered or made in order to start tackling that list of ‘important but not necessarily urgent’ tasks. Time away from the office can provide you the clarity, and maybe more importantly, the dedicated time necessary to address the topics and tasks that have been on the back burner for what seems like forever.
Each July, I’m fortunate to be able to head up to the mountains and experience a whole month without travel (which is a big shift from my regular schedule). It came as something of a surprise to me that I’m much more productive this way than I generally am in the office. In fact, I absolutely crush my to-do list while away because I’m in a state of ‘deep work’. I’m focused on one thing, one issue at a time, as opposed to the somewhat standard state of reconciling a million issues at once. I can slow down, get into the nitty-gritty and stay there long enough to overcome the obstacles, instead of having to run off and completely change gears, completely lose my problem-solving momentum, in the name of the next meeting. In other words, when I’m somewhat detached from the buzz of the office, I can more easily jump in to ‘Maker Mode’. In this space, state, however you want to think of it, I have time and bandwidth to work on the business, not in the business. Time to contemplate strategy, to zoom way out and get a bird’s eye view of the why and what as opposed to the logistics of what, how and when.
To be clear, It’s not about getting especially far away from the office, being unresponsive, or working through your time off. Designated vacation time ‘off the grid’ is also important, it’s just not what I’m talking about here. An “at work” opportunity to break free from the day to day and the office routine has been a nice add for me.
When I get into this deep work mode out of the office, time flies and the productivity seems to flow through me, as opposed to coming from me. For me, the value of time working away from the office is not just to regain focus, but to reexamine my aim. To take my eyes off the waves endlessly crashing over my bow and scrutinize the course I’m charting.
I’d love to figure out how to do this more than once a year. Has this or something similar worked for you? How often (and how) do you find time to get into a state of deep work?
