Amplify the Urgency of New

Another reason to block time to commission and review experiments is that routine responsibilities are constantly calling — making fresh demands on our time and attention — and so the “new” has a tendency to get pushed to the fringes. It’s very easy to deprioritize an uncertain new thing in the light of a certain fire drill.

That’s not because new work isn’t important.

It is.

It’s because the new is rarely FELT to be urgent. (The age-old urgent / important paradox strikes again!)

The way to hack this weakness in the matrix is to block time to launch experiments, and then to ALSO schedule time to review the anticipated data, even before you have data to review. Carving out time specifically both to commission new experiments and also to review the data those experiments create ensures that nascent explorations aren’t choked out by legitimate concerns about the old that inevitably come up in the course of routine work.

More than once I have thanked my “past self” for having had the foresight to block my calendar for the important new work I’m doing, to shield me from the imposing pressure of the routine demands on my calendar. I want to make time, but new work doesn’t make time for itself.

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