First published nationally in the Business Journal Newspapers
I sat staring at my phone. I didn’t want to call one of my directors, Joe. He and I had been going back and forth about a new program for our company and we could not agree on scheduling. My nature is to jump into things right away, so I wanted to get things on the calendar tout de suite. Joe is more on the cautious side, so he was advocating for later in the year. During our last conversation, we reached an impasse, so we did the smart thing—table the issue. One of the best things your can do for your brain is provide what psychologists call an incubation period. The brain can become overwhelmed when trying to sort out all kinds of facts and information. Time away from the issue allows it to sift through the data and re-join the conversation more productively. Because the brain does most of its reorganizing while you sleep, the most optimal incubation period is
overnight. The phrase, let’s sleep on it, didn’t come from nowhere. Joe and I got the incubation part right, but what Joe did next surprised me.
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