The First 2 Hours

Chapter 5Second 2 hoursReactive

Imagine you are in a ballroom, dancing. Most of your concentration is on your partner and dancing without stepping on their toes, or the toes of other nearby couples. You tend to be focused on the task at hand.

However, if you were to go up onto the balcony, you would find yourself with a view of the whole room, being able to observe patterns of movement, locate certain people, identify chairs, bathrooms, bars and food tables. You get a bigger picture.

You might recognise this as a concept introduced by Ron Heifetz in his book Leadership without Easy Answers. I want you to apply this thinking here.

If the first two hours is about being on the dance floor with your head down and getting impactful work done, the second two hours is about getting up onto the balcony to see what else is going on.

It is about identifying where you need to put your attention now that the most important things are under control. The second two hours are good for the tasks listed in figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1: your second 2 hours

The second two hours are about reacting to others’ needs now that you have spent time working on what is most important to you.

Attending to others’ needs

While the first two hours is about being proactive — getting a head start on the most impactful things — the second two hours gives you the space to be reactive and respond to your urgent ...