Traffic jams and sleepless nights

A lot gets written about the idea of leaders being present; mindful, in the moment. It’s important, but it’s only half the picture. If you are always in the moment, you never truly see beyond it and you lose valuable perspective and that’s a surprisingly easy trap to fall into. 

At the busiest points of my own term in agency leadership my brain was almost permanently occupied with what was on fire (or at least smouldering with menace). Client issues, delivery problems, cashflow worries, staff questions, the next thing that needed deciding now. None of it was dramatic in isolation. Collectively, it filled every available mental gap.

I was always thinking, but rarely thinking well.

The only time I had any real space for reflection was when I was stuck in a traffic jam or when I was lying awake at night – both things I did more often than I wanted to. Those strange, quiet moments where you’re forced to stop reacting and your brain starts making connections. Pieces come together. You notice patterns. You replay conversations and suddenly understand what was really going on. These moments are valuable when they are all you have, but they are also a warning sign.

If the only time you’re able to think properly about your business is when you’re exhausted or trapped, something is wrong. That thinking space hasn’t been designed into your life or your business. It’s being stolen by the gaps left when your nervous system finally drops its guard.

Thinking by design

Today I deliberately build thinking time into my business. I leave gaps between calls and block time for activities where my mental coils unwind. Time to process the previous block of activity and join the dots. I can do this as my work today doesn’t require me to be permanently on call to react to the now. That isn’t a privilege though – it is by design.

The founders I work with don’t lack intelligence, experience, or ideas. What they often lack is cognitive slack. Their thinking is often consumed by urgency. Not because they’re bad leaders, but because their businesses still rely on them to be the glue holding everything together.

They’re always present. Always reachable. Always “on”. And as a result, their best thinking happens at exactly the wrong times – late at night, under stress, or not at all.

This is one of the less obvious reasons having someone on your side can matter. Not because they have better ideas, but because they have space. Space to reflect, to connect dots, to notice the things you can’t see while you’re inside the machine trying to keep it running.

This week I’ve been in the misty hills of northern Portugal at a retreat with Whitesmith. There’s plenty of work being done. This certainly isn’t  a holiday. But  the setting and the team’s working culture create natural gaps. Walking between buildings. Long meals. Quiet moments where nothing is demanding immediate action.

Those gaps matter. Not because they’re relaxing, but because they allow slower, more considered thinking to surface. The kind of thinking that never survives in a calendar packed edge-to-edge with calls.

The point isn’t that you need retreats, or rural Portugal, or hours of meditation (although I wound’t argue against any of those things either). The point is simpler and less comfortable.

If your business only gives you space to think when you’re exhausted, distracted, or lying awake at night, it’s extracting that capacity from you rather than supporting it. Likewise, if you’re always in the moment, always reacting, always dealing with what’s on fire, you might feel productive, but you’re slowly giving up the ability to lead with any real perspective.

Ask yourself where your best thinking currently happens.  If the honest answer is “in traffic” or “at 3am”, don’t romanticise it. Treat it as a signal. Something in your business design needs to change before those moments dry up entirely.