It’s strange, isn’t it, how little space we make for thinking in the places that depend most on our ability to think clearly?
Time spent reading, reflecting, analyzing, and planning has somehow become the enemy of productivity in modern professional culture. We’ve romanticized the busy calendar, the rapid response, the high-output, always-on worker. But what gets quietly erased in this glorification of motion is the quality of the mind behind the movement.
I’ve lost count of how many professionals, in recent years, have told me with a sigh that they simply don’t have time to read. Or to write. Or to reflect. They’re too busy working. But that raises two questions. First, why is this time only being sought within the boundaries of work hours? And more importantly, how is deep reading, contemplation, or structured reflection not considered part of the work in the first place?
This is the puzzle that continues to frustrate me. Why do we treat thinking as something extra? Why is it acceptable – even expected – for leaders and professionals to spend entire weeks reacting, responding, and executing, without ever pausing to consider what they’re doing or why? We’ve inherited a work culture obsessed with velocity but allergic to insight.
We’ve built a system where the appearance of productivity often wins out over actual clarity. A system where being seen typing furiously at your desk is more validated than being seen quietly staring out the window with a book in your hand.
But here’s the thing: the best work usually doesn’t come from constant motion. It comes from thoughtful action. From people who have spent time understanding the terrain before running into it. From those who’ve taken a beat to step back and look for patterns, to design better systems, to read and learn and grow in their judgment. That’s not downtime. That’s the upgrade.
It’s no wonder so many teams feel stuck in a cycle of shallow decision-making. When there’s no pause, no space for synthesis, no time to examine context – then of course people default to what they’ve done before. And when every hour must be justifiable through outputs, it becomes risky to take the kind of time required to become truly insightful.
But this isn’t just a time management issue. It’s a values issue.
What we reward, what we model, what we make visible in our organizations signals what we believe to be valuable. If reflection and learning are seen as extracurricular – something to be squeezed in on weekends or late at night – then we’ve quietly decided that better thinking isn’t worth prioritizing. We’ve decided that immediate activity is always more valuable than cumulative understanding.
And perhaps most dangerously, we’ve baked that mindset into how we lead.
Many leaders, even well-meaning ones, unintentionally reinforce a culture of relentless output. They ask their teams for action, for results, for movement – but rarely ask what they’re learning, what they’re noticing, or what’s shifted in their thinking. Few create the conditions where a team member could say, “I spent the afternoon reading something that completely changed how I see this project,” and have that be celebrated rather than questioned.
It’s worth asking: what kind of culture are we building when deep thought is seen as indulgence?
I’m not suggesting we all abandon our calendars and retreat to the woods with hardcover books. But I am suggesting we stop treating reading, reflection, analysis, and design as if they are separate from productivity. They are productivity. Just a deeper, more sustainable kind. The kind that builds capacity. The kind that prevents burnout, course-corrects mistakes, and invites original thinking.
Imagine if time to read and reflect were protected in the same way that meetings are. Imagine if we blocked an hour each week on team calendars – not for “catch-up” but for “slow down.” Imagine if the performance review asked not just “What did you do?” but also “What have you come to understand better this year?” Imagine if we encouraged stillness the way we encourage hustle.
There are frameworks that support this. Concepts like deliberate practice, learning organizations, and double-loop learning all reinforce the idea that performance is tied to reflection. The world’s best athletes spend more time watching film and adjusting technique than they do running plays. The best investors read more than they trade. The best designers observe before they create. In almost every domain, excellence is the result of intentional pauses – not just relentless pushing.
But many workplaces still operate like assembly lines, not learning environments. We’ve transferred industrial-era mindsets into knowledge work – and then wondered why people feel exhausted and uninspired. The mind is not a machine. It requires different inputs to deliver at its best.
And yes, of course, it’s possible to read and reflect outside of work hours. But let’s not pretend that’s the same thing. When we tell people they have to do their deepest thinking on their own time, we send a signal: that learning is not a priority here. That being busy is more valued than being wise. That noise beats nuance.
If we want to work better, we need to think better. And to think better, we need to give ourselves and others the space to slow down, read something long and complicated, wrestle with ambiguity, absorb a new perspective, sit in silence, and come back sharper.
The question isn’t whether we can afford the time. The question is: can we really afford not to?
Because if all we reward is motion, we’ll get plenty of it. But it might take us nowhere.