The quality of everything we do...

...is based on the quality of thinking we do first.  This little gem comes direct from Nancy Kline, a lady I have heard speak and whose books I love to dip in and out of (Time to Think and More Time to Think).

So what does that mean to you?

If you rush, feel stressed and like you have no space to think you won't be doing your best work (and we're talking major fluke if you do).  Those reading who profess that they do their 'best work under pressure', I'm really going to challenge your understanding of yourself, but don't worry, I'll be gentle!

I want to walk through a couple of ways to get yourself into a 'thinking' mindset, so stick with me - this may get uncomfortable.

1. Think about a situation when you have had to complete a piece of work quickly
- Take yourself back to the day / time it happened
            - where were you?
            - how were you feeling?
            - what was going on around you?
            - what was driving the speed of completion?

2. What did you do first?

3. What did you do next? (and so on...)

4. Looking over your account - emotions and facts - what do you want to do differently next time?

Assuming you're reading this in order, I'm going to shed a bit of light on why I've asked those specific questions...

In times of high stress, looming deadlines, high volume of workload, it can often lead to an 'all hands to the pump' situation.  It means little thinking time and the desire to just get something completed can take over and you're left with a high-octane situattion where you're clambering to get anything done.  I'd expect a lot of people to answer question 2 with something along the lines of 'well I thought about what needed to be done and got on with it...' and then for the account of the situation to develop into more people getting involved, additional requests coming in, deadlines being met by the skin of your teeth etc...we've all been there!

So, in addition to my 'what would you differently next time' question above, here are some more for you to think on...
- what really needs to be done?
- where do you do your best thinking?
- where do you do your best work?
- who energises your freshest thinking?
- how can you use reflection time?
- what do you need to be able to create a plan of action?
- how do you want to use deadlines? (I'm thinking of our better under pressure workers here!)

I'll be exploring the work of Nancy Kline in future blogs, I love the concept of creating a thinking environment for yourself and others - I've been on both sides, but have now come through as a firm believer that if I do my best thinking up front the output will be far better than anything I could have done if I do a rush job. 

But for now...happy thinking x