Time To Stand & Stare

A chap called William Davies wrote a poem once about the benefits of taking a step back and having a moment to soak in what’s around.  It begins with the line:

“What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare…”

It’s easy to feel left behind right now.  Every moment someone else is having a good idea which is tweeted your way.  It can leave one feeling a bit lacking in the “original thinking” department.

But this is a trap, brought on by an information society that is constantly on a flow tide.

Rather than think of new stuff, it’s just as important (maybe more important) to make time to think, digest and implement the ideas that you already have around you.

Recruitment and business strategy are two examples of this.  Companies believe that they need more ‘ideas’ people when they actually need ‘doing’ people.  They plan ‘away days to shape corporate strategy’, seeking the next ‘big thin’g when they’ve already got that very thing.  It’s just not being well implemented – or maybe not well communicated.

A friend of mine went back to Oxford University recently to take another degree. As one of the most focused people I know, we lost him to his first year as his head was in books, magazines, blogs the whole time – if it was written in his subject area, he’d read it.

At the end of year one, his lecturers told him that he was reading too much and thinking too little. He was ordered to read less!  And, of course, to think more.

If you never have the time to think, make time to do so.  It will make you money.