Pause; Reflect; Proceed

To achieve success, one has to slow down first, and reevaluate goals, strategies, and focus areas.

- Liz Bywater

Today’s workers are constantly faced with too much to do and too little time in which to do it. From employees on the front lines to leaders in the C-Suite, the frenetic pace of business is taking a toll on workers’ productivity and personal health. A recent survey found that an alarming one in four employees feel burned out at work. The resulting psychological and physical problems associated with burnedout employees add up to $125 to $190 billion each year.

In today’s fast-paced world, workers are under intense pressure. They face back-to-back meetings, nonstop emails and voice messages, pressing deadlines, and the kind of excessive busyness that leads to a sense of overwhelm. And, at the end of a day of rushing, they are left asking, “What did I actually accomplish?”

When you are moving at breakneck speed, you are not thriving—you are just surviving. Until you learn to hit the brakes at crucial intervals, you will have little time to reflect on the hurdles in your way. Often, you go into autopilot mode without preemptively considering the pros, cons, and implications of your decisions.

When you teach yourself to pause and reflect before acting, you will make better decisions, achieve faster results, and avert the kind of mistakes that take precious time, energy, and political capital to correct. Even building in a modest 15-minute pause into your daily schedule can do wonders for gaining a competitive edge.

If you or your team have a project that requires your urgent attention—a client who needs your immediate help, a regulatory agency demanding rapid response, or a sales target that cannot be missed—then your attention must go to those pressing priorities first. On the other hand, if you only attend to the here-and-now but neglect the bigger picture, you may do well enough for a while. But it is unlikely that you or your organisation will thrive over time.