The Work That Always Waits Until Next Week

Why does strategic work always get pushed to next week?

Because next week you think you’ll have more time. Next week will be different. That is the lie we tell ourselves, and it is a lie. It’s the lie I told myself. You will never have more time than you do in this moment. Next week will not suddenly make strategic work easier or better. You’re not going to magically feel like doing that work more next week than you do this week.

The conditions will not change. And really, you don’t want to be dependent on those conditions anyway.

So instead of waiting for the conditions to change, you have to change. You don’t need more time. You need the next best “brick”.

Firefighting vs. Bricklaying

Why is it so hard to do strategic work with all the daily operational demands? It really comes down to the difference between firefighting and bricklaying.

Most of us spend too much of our day in reactive, firefighting mode. And why is that? It’s just the way our brains are wired.

There’s a big dopamine hit when you’re responding to immediate, urgent needs. You can see the progress because it’s very tangible. When you’ve been the hero and solved an urgent problem or taken care of a client request that was imperative, there’s visible progress. There’s a clear sense of accomplishment, visible to those around you. Those immediate, intrinsic rewards are built into firefighting.

In contrast, strategic work is more like bricklaying. You can have the vision of an amazing cathedral, but there are no shortcuts. The cathedral is built brick by brick.

I like to think about it like this. Strategic work is hard work. It’s building a system that will make next quarter and next year even better. It’s deep thinking time, planning, the kind of work that doesn’t result in immediate dopamine. And quite frankly, you might be excited about some of the bigger strategic things in the beginning, but once the newness wears off, it’s a slog. It becomes bricklaying.

Of course, firefighting wins out over bricklaying most of the time. But the good news is you do have the power to get more of that strategic work (the cathedral-building) done, even with all the pulls of daily operations.

The Next Best Brick

To get more high-impact, strategic work done, don’t try to “find” more time that will never come. Just look for the next best brick.

I know this because I lived it. I was deep in client work, running the business, and the big thing I was trying to build, Get Strategic 30, kept getting pushed to next week. What changed wasn’t my schedule. I started breaking the work down into the smallest possible unit, protecting just that unit, and treating it like a client commitment. That shift changed everything. It’s now one of the concepts I work through with my Get Strategic 30 clients, because it’s what actually gets the strategic work done.

Breaking the Cathedral Into Bricks

I really like thinking about this concept in the metaphor of building a cathedral. Because the IDEA of a cathedral is exciting, but actually building it, not so much! This is the case for a lot of our strategic initiatives and big ideas. We love the idea of them, but the actual work can seem like too much to process if we haven’t broken our “cathedral” down into the bricks we need to lay to build it.

So what you have to do with your strategic work is take that big project, that big idea, and break it down into the next best brick you can lay. Even in a busy world where we’re all firefighting, we can lay a brick. You can make time to lay a brick. And once you lay one brick, if you already know what the next brick is, you might lay two. Heck, you might even lay three.

But the key is having already identified the work IN ADVANCE into a unit so small (I like to use 30-minute units, I call these Get Strategic 30 Sprints), it’s the equivalent of laying down a brick. There’s a heavy cognitive switching tax when you bounce between projects and tasks, so you really want to minimize that as much as possible. You set yourself up for success by identifying three to four bricks you can lay each week in advance, regardless of the pulls on your focus.

Idea to Action

Let go of the idea that next week will be calmer, that the conditions will be better, that you’ll feel more like it. I waited on that week for years, and it never came. The good news is you don’t need it.

It’s going to be a slog some days, and that’s okay.

Take the biggest thing that’s going to move your business forward right now and break it down into the next three to five bricks. Define each brick by time — about 30 minutes. What’s the unit of work you can get done in that time? Identify three to five of them so they’re ready. Then put one on your schedule and honor it like you would a client meeting.

You can lay that one brick. And once you have, you’ll want to lay the next.

And when you define your success as laying down one brick at a time, not the end result of building a cathedral, you get that dopamine hit; that small measure of success that creates momentum to keep you moving forward.

If you do that consistently, before you know it, you won’t just have your cathedral. You’ll have built a discipline you’ll use for all the really big things in your life that matter most.

Lay that next brick. Do it today.

Work well,

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does strategic work always get pushed to next week?

Because firefighting pays off right away. Solving an urgent problem gives you visible progress and a quick sense of accomplishment. Strategic work, like planning and deep thinking, builds a better next quarter and next year, so the reward comes later. Next week won’t bring more time or make the work feel easier, so waiting for better conditions means the work keeps waiting.

What is the “next best brick”?

The next best brick is the smallest unit of a big strategic project that you can finish in one sitting, about 30 minutes. You break the big project (the cathedral) into these units ahead of time, so when you sit down to work you already know exactly what to do. Lay one brick, and if the next one is already defined, you can often lay two or three.

How do you make time for strategic work when daily operations take over?

Take the biggest thing that will move your business forward and break it into three to five bricks of about 30 minutes each. Identify three to four of them in advance each week, put one on your calendar, and honor it like a client meeting. Defining the bricks ahead of time cuts the cognitive switching tax of figuring out what to work on between fires.

What is a Get Strategic 30 Sprint?

A Get Strategic 30 Sprint is a 30-minute block of strategic work, defined in advance, that’s the equivalent of laying one brick. I use it with my Get Strategic 30 clients because breaking the work into units this small, and protecting each one like a client commitment, is what actually gets the strategic work done.

Adriana McLane

I help privately held distributors build strategy that holds up through growth, leadership transition, and what comes next. Fifteen years running Fulfilling Strategy, the last six spent deep inside distribution, working alongside the leadership of privately held distribution companies to build strategy that holds when a competitor moves in on your territory, when a President steps back, and when the next generation takes the lead. More about Adriana →