Clarity Breaks

An article in Fast Company magazine, Why You Should Work From A Coffee Shop Even When You Have An Office, prompted this post. You can read it here. Entrepreneurs and leaders of companies of all sizes oftentimes get lost in working in their business. The todo list they came into the office with this morning grew, not shrunk, by the time they left the office. The urgent drives out the important. What to do about it?

Take a clarity break. This break is an opportunity to work on your business. Clarity breaks are very personal. By which I mean, you decide where and when and how often to take them. My passionate plea is that you take them. Schedule them in your Daytimer or in your PDA.

The characteristics of a good clarity break are:

• they are away from your place of business
• they are at a frequency that you can afford and is helpful to you
• they are of a duration that allows you to think clearly and achieve some results, and
• generally they are done without all our electronic devices turned on.

Gino Wickman, the founder of EOS, takes them one morning a week in a Starbucks. Just him, his coffee, and a yellow legal pad. He often says that at the start he sometimes finds himself staring at the pad, but almost always ideas, concerns, questions arise from the back of his mind and good thinking starts. Clients of mine have reported taking them in their local library or just getting up before the rest of their household and securing themselves in the family room or an office. The key is to find a set of characteristics that work for you.

Where do you take your clarity breaks? We all would love another place to go.