Virtually Priceless Thoughts

So not directly informatics related, but a few conversations and articles have come across my path that seemed worth sharing on the importance of taking time.

The Slow Leadership blog recently posted When Procrastination Works Better Than Action. While I don’t necessarily agree with using the word “procrastination” to describe thoughtful pauses, I do agree with the importance of thoughtful pauses.

People do feel rushed to provide an answer. Immediately. As a physician, I am trained to have the answers before the end of a visit - even if the answer isn’t readily apparent.

In Praise of Openmindedness discusses the idea of taking time to make sure you do not always follow your knee jerk reaction. The pressures of not having enough time makes the knee jerk reaction all too easy, and that might just mean you miss something grand.

And Roger Martin makes this the tenant of his book:

“The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking” (Roger L. Martin)

Holding onto opposite or contrary thoughts and taking a bit of time to explore each option to see what the impact might be comes natural to some. Cultivating this skill is a key to good leadership, according to the book. That action requires time as well.

Stephen Covey, puts it like this:

Between stimulus and response, there is space.

In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

I quite like that one.