Without Time to Think, You Will Not Get Very Far

From Time Tactics of Very Successful People:

Don’t confuse busyness with efficiency. An organization’s best people sometimes spend their most productive time seemingly daydreaming.

Busyness may, in fact, be counterproductive. “It is necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant,” says James D. Watson. He is a Nobel laureate who shared the prize with Francis Crick for successfully discovering the genetic code of DNA. The story of how underemployed they were — the stories of their meanderings and long weekends, parties, visits, and other diversions — is told delightfully in The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, a human-side-of-science classic.

Watson and Crick had the luxury of being able to study all sorts of ideas, interact with scientists in many fields, attend conferences all over the world. But most of all, Watson and Crick had time to think about what they were reading and hearing and seeing. That’s what Watson means when he praises underemployment.

If these two researchers had not received generous research grants, if they had needed to hold down two jobs in order to make ends meet, they probably would not have made the discovery that revolutionized biological research. Thanks to generous support plus the British university tradition that emphasizes contemplation, Watson and Crick were sufficiently underemployed to do something significant.

People on treadmills don’t get very far [emphasis added]. If you’re so busy working that you have no time to think about what you’re working at, you’ll be unable to make full use of your accomplishments.

Underemployment provides the time between activities to reflect on what you’ve just finished and think, “What does this mean?” “How can I exploit what I have done?” Underemployment provides the time to figure out other ways than the obvious to use what you’re producing. And it provides time to consider how what you’ve done fits with what’s already been done.

August 10, 2009 | Filed Under Productivity | 5 Comments

Comments

5 Responses to “Without Time to Think, You Will Not Get Very Far”

Goannatree on August 10th, 2009 10:14 am

Great advice! Reminds me that i need to under-schedule myself a little more to add in some thinking time.
Aaron Mayfield on August 10th, 2009 1:58 pm

Thanks Matt. Have you finished the book? Do you recommend it?
Matt on August 10th, 2009 4:17 pm

I haven’t finished it yet. It’s good as a supplemental book to round out your knowledge on time management. It’s the type of book to read after reading the more core books like Getting Things Done and First Things First.
Garrett Wishall on August 13th, 2009 11:50 am

Great, great post. Very helpful. An excellent illustration of why the seminary system is unhelpfully overloading in many respects.

Now I want to know why you took 40-50 credit hours in one year at Southern Seminary???
Matt on August 14th, 2009 12:54 pm

That’s a good point. On top of the overload for seminary students in their courses, many are also working 15-20 hours a week and raising young families. That is a lot to have going on, which certainly decreases time for reflection and thought.

So…those 50 hours. I loved it! My philosophy was: getting these courses done in short order would provide more time in the long-run. It worked great. If I had the email volume then that I have now, though, I’m not sure if it would have been possible!