T I M E M A N A G E M E N T
Step 5: Stop Before You have to
If you can’t finish in one session, break while you’re still in the
midst of creating ideas and certain of where you’re going to go
next. If you wait until you’re stuck or seem to have exhausted all
the possibilities, and then stop, you’ll carry a negative impression
which can grow into dread and create a difficult startup time when
you return to the project. But if you’ve left your work confident of
your next steps, you’ll come to the plan with a positive frame of
mind and ready to resume immediately.
New Age? Nonsense
Lest you think this process sounds a trifle touchie-feelie, some-
thing right out of the hippie dippy 1960s, know that people like
Charles Haanel were working with these methods at the turn of
the century, and Dorothea Brande spelled out a similar process
for writers in a book called Becoming a Writer in the early 1930s.
This method is solid, it’s time-tested, and it works.
By actually scheduling your thinking time, you’ll nurture,
maintain, and increase your ability to solve problems and develop
new ideas creatively. As you do, you’ll recapture a hyperalertness
and an openness to possibilities, not just during those scheduled
sessions, but during the rest of the time as well.
Instead of trying to find time to be creative or to fit creative
thinking into your hectic life, you’ll find yourself living in a con-
stant creative state.