Thirty-five years ago when I was a young attorney, the first task each morning was sifting through the day’s mail. A secretary would sit with me as I opened each envelope, reviewed the contents and dictated a response. Sometimes, when I was unsure of an appropriate response, I would set a letter aside on the corner of my desk. A day or two later I would receive a phone call from the sender asking for my response. “Letter?” I would ask. “What letter? It must still be at the post office.” 

While I felt a little guilty for misleading the caller, it was an easy way to give myself time to think. In today’s world, we rarely have the luxury of time to think. Emails arrive like bullets from a Gatling gun. The sender has a read receipt and expects an answer – in an instant. Worse yet, we react to that email ping like Pavlov’s dogs, springing to respond and creating a cycle that feeds off itself. That hyper-pace has infected everything about how we do business. We don’t take the time to think, to strategize, to plan. It’s a dangerous habit. 

While these days we can’t pretend that the letter carrier hasn’t arrived, sometimes we would be well served by putting things aside and taking time to think.