This is placeholder text, ready for Paige's real draft. The layout, links, and editor are fully working — just replace these words.
There's a kind of work that never shows up on a calendar: the thinking. The slow, unglamorous, apparently-idle time where a hard decision finally untangles itself and you see the move you couldn't see when you were busy.
We've engineered that time almost entirely out of modern leadership. Back-to-back is a badge. A full calendar feels like proof of importance. But a full calendar is also a guarantee that nothing new will occur to you.
Margin is not laziness
I started calling the empty blocks on my calendar "thinking margin," partly so I'd stop apologizing for them. Margin is where strategy actually happens. It's where you notice the thing your team has been trying to tell you for weeks.
How to protect it
- Block it before the week fills in around it.
- Treat it like a meeting with the most important person you answer to.
- Resist the urge to fill it the moment it feels uncomfortable.
The discomfort is the point. That's the sound of your mind finally having room to move.