Sharpen Your Axe

Abraham Lincoln supposedly said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” But what does it look like for an information worker to sharpen the axe? My sense it probably looks something like the “Think Week” practice advocated by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

A product manager at Google recently told me her boss — a senior leader who oversees a bunch of PM’s — instituted a “Sharpen the Saw Week” for all product managers in their area: “He blocked and tackled for us so that we could block an entire week. He told everyone who inquired, ‘The product managers are out this week, sharpening their saws.’ I built an app with our product, which I hadn’t used before. It was refreshing to get hands on and do something technical, and it also made me much more familiar with the product I was managing, rather than just having an abstract understanding of it.”

She said, “It might feel unproductive to sit there and sharpen the saw, but it was a huge win in the end.”

The prospect of blocking an entire week devoted to thinking and learning can seem intimidating, if not altogether impossible. Instead of blocking a whole week, why not start by blocking a day per month? That insight struck me afresh a few weeks back when I realized I was particularly looking forward to a day full of travel, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to be on the computer, or the phone, or any zoom calls.

I brought a couple of books, and spent the day investing in my own learning. And it was so refreshing that midway through the day of flights, I whipped out my calendar and proceeded to block a day in each month for the next year. I was shocked by how challenging it was to shuffle things around to free up even a day, but you know what? Having just reaped the benefit of that decision several weeks ago, I can say, “It’s worth it!”

I just finished the first day that I blocked on the calendar on that flight, and I gleaned loads of inspiration from the time I spent with the computer lid closed, even thought I’m at my home office and well within the range of wifi!

Don’t underestimate the power of small wins.

Something similar happened once I fully comprehended the importance of recovery time. After the conversation referenced in that post, I changed the settings in my calendar. I had to look a full two months out to get beyond existing meetings, but I’m now reaping the rewards of a small daily window dedicated to recovery.

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