Serious leaders need un-serious time
When was the last time you did something just for fun? Not because it would make you fitter, expand your network or sharpen your mind. Not because you could turn it into a side hustle, but just because you enjoyed it.
For many ambitious people, that can be surprisingly difficult to answer.
We have become very good at making almost everything productive. We track our runs, set reading targets, and listen to business podcasts while walking. We turn hobbies into side businesses and holidays into carefully planned itineraries.
Even rest has acquired a purpose… namely, recover quickly so we can get back to work. But perhaps not every minute and hour needs to earn its keep.
You were never meant to be productive all the time
For leaders especially, there is always something more useful that could be done. Another email to answer, problem to solve or article to read. Yet constantly carrying work in our heads does not necessarily help us do it better.
Research on psychological detachment, or mentally switching off from work during non-work time, has linked it to better well-being and lower psychological strain. And many times, stepping away can even help us see a problem differently.
Most of us have experienced this. You struggle with something for hours, walk away, take a shower or go for a run, and suddenly an idea appears.
Sometimes the mind needs room to wander.
Make time for things that don’t make money
But there is a danger in arguing that leisure matters only because it makes us better workers. If we say, “Take up gardening because it will improve your leadership,” we have somehow managed to turn gardening into another leadership assignment. And that… misses the point.
Play football badly. Learn a song on the piano even if nobody will hear it. Cook something unnecessarily complicated. Paint. Read a novel that teaches you absolutely nothing about business. Do something at which you do not need to excel.
There is something liberating about having parts of our lives where there are no KPIs, clients or performance reviews.
Leaders need a life outside work
The more senior we become, the easier it is for work to consume our identity. Our title follows us. Our conversations revolve around our industry, and success and failure at work begin to feel deeply personal.
A life outside work gives us much-needed grounding and perspective. A terrible day at the office becomes just that: a terrible day at the office, not a verdict on who we are.
Leisure is not a luxury
There will always be another task waiting, which is precisely why waiting until everything is finished before allowing ourselves leisure does not work. Everything is never finished.
So protect an evening. Pick up an old hobby. Spend time with people without an agenda. Try something you are embarrassingly bad at, and every now and then, do something completely useless. It might be one of the most useful things you do.
Sincerely,
